Animal Farm

GEORGE ORWELL

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FARM

GEORGE ORWELL

The animals on Mr. Jones’s farm
stage a successful revolution, and
take the place over. Their hopes,
their plans, and their achievements
form the subject of Animal Farm.
In the first flush of enthusiasm there
is set up a great commandment, All
animals are equal , but unfortunately
leadership devolves almost automati¬
cally on the pigs, who are on a higher
intellectual level than the rest. The
revolution begins to go wrong— yet
at every step excellent excuses are
always forthcoming for each perver¬
sion of the original doctrine.

Mr. Orwell has a wonderful sym¬
pathy for most of his animal char¬
acters, and they are all very much
alive. It is not only the fight be¬
tween the two pigs, Snowball and

( Continued on back flap)

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
383 Madison Avenue, New York 17

ANIMAL FARM

'

ANIMAL FARM

George Orwell

HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE OF CANADA

INITITUT CANADIEN DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

gli MtTGAUffi ST,, SUITE 30
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
KIR IRl

NEW YORK

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form.

i

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN
SCRANTON, PA.

ANIMAL FARM

'

UNIVERSITY library

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

CHAPTER I

MR. JONES, of the Manor Farm, had locked
the hen-houses for the night, but was too
drunk to remember to shut the popholes. With the
ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to
side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots
at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer
from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up
to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there
was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm
buildings. Word had gone round during the day that
old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a
strange dream on the previous night and wished to
communicate it to the other animals. It had been
agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as
soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way. Old Ma¬
jor (so he was always called, though the name under
which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty)
was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was
quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear
what he had to say.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised plat¬
form, Major was already ensconced on his bed of

[3]

straw, under a lantern which hung from a beam. He
was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout,
but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and
benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his
tushes had never been cut. Before long the other ani¬
mals began to arrive and make themselves comfortable
after their different fashions. First came the three
dogs. Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs,
who settled down in the straw immediately in front
of the platform. The hens perched themselves on the
window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters,
the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and be¬
gan to chew the cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and
Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and set¬
ting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest
there should be some small animal concealed in the
straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching
middle life, who had never quite got her figure back
after her fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast,
nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two
ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his
nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in
fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was
universally respected for his steadiness of character
and tremendous powers of work. After the horses
came Muriel, the white goat, and Benjamin, the
donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm,
and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when
he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark—
for instance, he would say that God had given him a
tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have

[ 4 ]

had no tail and no flies. Alone among the animals on
the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he would
say that he saw nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless,
without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer;
the two of them usually spent their Sundays together
in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side
by side and never speaking.

The two horses had just lain down when a brood of
ducklings, which had lost their mother, filed into the
barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side
to find some place where they would not be trodden
on. Clover made a sort of wall round them with her
great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it
and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment Mollie,
the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's
trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of
sugar. She took a place near the front and began flirt¬
ing her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the
red ribbons it was plaited with. Last of all came the
cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest
place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer
and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout
Major's speech without listening to a word of what he
was saying.

All the animals were now present except Moses, the
tame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back
door. When Major saw that they had all made them¬
selves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he
cleared his throat and began:

“Comrades, you have heard already about the
strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to

[5]

the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do
not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many
months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to
pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have
had a long life, I have had much time for thought as
I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I
understand the nature of life on this earth as well as
any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to
speak to you.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of
ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious,
and short. We are born, we are given just so much
food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those
of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the
last atom of our strength; and the very instant that
our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered
with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows
the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year
old. No animal in England is free. The life of an ani¬
mal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

"But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it
because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot af¬
ford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No,
comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England
is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording
food in abundance to an enormously greater number
of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of
ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hun¬
dreds of sheep— and all of them living in a comfort
and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagin¬
ing. Why then do we continue in this miserable con-
[6]

dition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our
labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, com¬
rades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed
up in a single word— Man. Man is the only real enemy
we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root
cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.

'‘Man is the only creature that consumes without
producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs,
he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast
enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the ani¬
mals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the
bare minimum that will prevent them from starving,
and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the
soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of
us that owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I
see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk
have you given during this last year? And what has
happened to that milk which should have been breed¬
ing up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down
the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many
eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of
those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest have
all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his
men. And you, Clover, where are those four foals you
bore, who should have been the support and pleasure
of your old age? Each was sold at a year old— you will
never see one of them again. In return for your four
confinements and all your labour in the fields, what
have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?

"And even the miserable lives we lead are not al¬
lowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not

[7]

grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve
years old and have had over four hundred children.
Such is the natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes
the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are
sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream
your lives out at the block within a year. To that hor¬
ror we all must come— cows, pigs, hens, sheep, every¬
one. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate.
You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of
yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the
knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down
for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow
old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks
and drowns them in the nearest pond.

“Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the
evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of hu¬
man beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of
our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we
could become rich and free. What then must we do?
Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the over¬
throw of the human race! That is my message to you,
comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebel¬
lion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred
years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath
my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix
your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short
remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this
message of mine to those who come after you, so that
future generations shall carry on the struggle until it
is victorious.

“And remember, comrades, your resolution must

[8]

never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never
listen when they tell you that Man and the animals
have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one
is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves
the interests of no creature except himself. And among
us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comrade¬
ship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals
are comrades/'

At this moment there was a tremendous uproar.
While Major was speaking four large rats had crept
out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquar¬
ters, listening to him. The dogs had suddenly caught
sight of them, and it was only by a swift dash for their
holes that the rats saved their lives. Major raised his
trotter for silence.

“Comrades,” he said, “here is a point that must be
settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits—
are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to
the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are
rats comrades?”

The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an
overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There
were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat,
who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both
sides. Major continued:

“I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remem¬
ber always your duty of enmity towards Man and all
his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
And remember also that in fighting against Man, we

[9]

must not come to resemble him. Even when you have
conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal
must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear
clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch
money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are
evil. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise
over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple,
we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other
animal. All animals are equal.

“And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream
of last night. I cannot describe that dream to you. It
was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man has
vanished. But it reminded me of something that I had
long forgotten. Many years ago, when I was a little
pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old
song of which they knew only the tune and the first
three words. I had known that tune in my infancy, but
it had long since passed out of my mind. Last night,
however, it came back to me in my dream. And what
is more, the words of the song also came back-words,
I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long
ago and have been lost to memory for generations. I
will sing you that song now, comrades. I am old and
my voice is hoarse, but when I have taught you the
tune, you can sing it better for yourselves. It is called
Beasts of England ”

Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing. As
he had said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well
enough, and it was a stirring tune, something between
Clementine and La Cucuracha. The words ran:

[10]

Beasts of England , beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time .

Soon or late the day is coming ,

Tyrant Man shall be overthrown,

And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone .

Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,

Bit and spur shall rust forever,

Cruel whips no more shall crack .

Riches more than mind can picture,
Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
Shall be ours upon that day.

Bright will shine the fields of England,
Purer shall its waters be,

Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
On the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labour.
Though we die before it break;

Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for freedom's sake.

Beasts of England , beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken well and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.

[11]

The singing of this song threw the animals into the
wildest excitement. Almost before Major had reached
the end, they had begun singing it for themselves.
Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the
tune and a few of the words, and as for the clever ones,
such as the pigs and dogs, they had the entire song by
heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few
preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into Beasts
of England in tremendous unison. The cows lowed
it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses
whinnied it, the ducks quacked it. They were so de¬
lighted with the song that they sang it right through
five times in succession, and might have continued
singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.

Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who
sprang out of bed, making sure that there was a fox in
the yard. He seized the gun which always stood in a
corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number
6 shot into the darkness. The pellets buried themselves
in the wall of the barn and the meeting broke up hur¬
riedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place. The
birds jumped on to their perches, the animals settled
down in the straw, and the whole farm was asleep in a
moment.

[ 12 ]

CHAPTER II

THREE nights later old Major died peacefully in
his sleep. His body was buried at the foot of the
orchard.

This was early in March. During the next three
months there was much secret activity. Major's speech
had given to the more intelligent animals on the farm
a completely new outlook on life. They did not know
when the Rebellion predicted by Major would take
place, they had no reason for thinking that it would
be within their own lifetime, but they saw clearly that
it was their duty to prepare for it. The work of teach¬
ing and organising the others fell naturally upon the
pigs, who were generally recognised as being the clev¬
erest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were
two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon,
whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale. Napoleon
was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the
only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but
with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball
was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in
speech and more inventive, but was not considered to
have the same depth of character. All the other male
pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among

[13]

them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very
round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and
a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he
was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skip¬
ping from side to side and whisking his tail which was
somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer
that he could turn black into white.

These three had elaborated old Major’s teachings
into a complete system of thought, to which they gave
the name of Animalism. Several nights a week, after
Mr. Jones was asleep, they -held secret meetings in the
barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to
the others. At the beginning they met with much stu¬
pidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the
duty of loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as
"Master,” or made elementary remarks such as "Mr.
Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we should starve to
death.” Others asked such questions as "Why should
we care what happens after we are dead?” or "If this
Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does it
make whether we work for it or not?”, and the pigs
had great difficulty in making them see that this was
contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The stupidest
questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare.
The very first question she asked Snowball was: "Will
there still be sugar after the Rebellion?”

"No,” said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of
making sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not need
sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want.”

"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my
mane?” asked Mollie.

[14]

“Comrade,” said Snowball, “those ribbons that you
are so devoted to are the badge of slavery. Can you
not understand that liberty is worth more than
ribbons?”

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very con¬
vinced.

The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract
the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses,
who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale¬
bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to
know of the existence of a mysterious country called
Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went
when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the
sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In
Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a
week, clover was in season all the year round, and
lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The
animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no
work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Moun¬
tain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade
them that there was no such place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two cart¬
horses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great diffi¬
culty in thinking anything out for themselves, but
having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they
absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it
on to the other animals by simple arguments. They
were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meet¬
ings in the barn, and led the singing of Beasts of
England , with which the meetings always ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved

[15]

much earlier and more easily than anyone had ex¬
pected. In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard
master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had
fallen on evil days. He had become much disheartened
after losing money in a lawsuit, and had taken to
drinking more than was good for him. For whole days
at a time he would lounge in his Windsor chair in the
kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking, and occa¬
sionally feeding Moses on crusts of bread soaked in
beer. His men were idle and dishonest, the fields were
full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges
were neglected, and the animals were underfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cut¬
ting. On Midsummer's Eve, which was a Saturday,
Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so drunk at
the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday
on Sunday. The men had milked the cows in the early
morning and then had gone out rabbiting, without
bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones got
back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing¬
room sofa with the News of the World over his face,
so that when evening came, the animals were still un¬
fed. At last they could stand it no longer. One of the
cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn
and all the animals began to help themselves from the
bins. It was just then that Mr. Jones woke up. The
next moment he and his four men were in the store-
shed With whips in their hands, lashing out in all
directions. This was more than the hungry animals
could bear. With one accord, though nothing of the
kind had been planned beforehand, they flung them-

[16]

selves upon their tormentors. Jones and his men sud¬
denly found themselves being butted and kicked from
all sides. The situation was quite out of their control.
They had never seen animals behave like this before,
and this sudden uprising of creatures whom they were
used to thrashing and maltreating just as they chose,
frightened them almost out of their wits. After only a
moment or two they gave up trying to defend them¬
selves and took to their heels. A minute later all five
of them were in full flight down the cart-track that led
to the main road, with the animals pursuing them in
triumph.

Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw
what was happening, hurriedly flung a few possessions
into a carpet bag, and slipped out of the farm by an¬
other way. Moses sprang off his perch and flapped
after her, croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had
chased Jones and his men out on to the road and
slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, al¬
most before they knew what was happening, the Re¬
bellion had been successfully carried through: Jones
was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.

For the first few minutes the animals could hardly
believe in their good fortune. Their first act was to
gallop in a body right round the boundaries of the
farm, as though to make quite sure that no human be¬
ing was hiding anywhere upon it; then they raced back
to the farm buildings to wipe out the last traces of
Jones's hated reign. The harness-room at the end of
the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose-rings,
the dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones

[ 17]

had been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all
flung down the well. The reins, the halters, the blink¬
ers, the degrading nosebags, were thrown on to the
rubbish fire which was burning in the yard. So were
the whips. All the animals capered with joy when they
saw the whips going up in flames. Snowball also threw
on to the fire the ribbons with which the horses’ manes
and tails had usually been decorated on market days.

"Ribbons,” he said, "should be considered as
clothes, which are the mark of a human being. All
animals should go naked.”

When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw
hat which he wore in summer to keep the flies out of
his ears, and flung it on to the fire with the rest.

In a very little while the animals had destroyed
everything that reminded them of Mr. Jones. Na¬
poleon then led them back to the store-shed and
served out a double ration of corn to everybody, with
two biscuits for each dog. Then they sang Beasts of
England from end to end seven times running, and
after that they settled down for the night and slept as
they had never slept before.

But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly re¬
membering the glorious thing that had happened,
they all raced out into the pasture together. A little
way down the pasture there was a knoll that com¬
manded a view of most of the farm. The animals
rushed to the top of it and gazed round them in the
clear morning light. Yes, it was theirs— everything that
they could see was theirs! In the ecstasy of that
thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled
[18]

themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement.
They rolled in the dew, they cropped mouthfuls of
the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the
black earth and snuffed its rich scent. Then they made
a tour of inspection of the whole farm and surveyed
with speechless admiration the ploughland, the hay-
field, the orchard, the pool, the spinney. It was as
though they had never seen these things before, and
even now they could hardly believe that it was all
their own.

Then they filed back to the farm buildings and
halted in silence outside the door of the farmhouse.
That was theirs too, but they were frightened to go
inside. After a moment, however, Snowball and Na¬
poleon butted the door open with their shoulders and
the animals entered in single file, walking with the
utmost care for fear of disturbing anything. They tip¬
toed from room to room, afraid to speak above a
whisper and gazing with a kind of awe at the unbeliev¬
able luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses,
the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, the Brussels
carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the
drawing-room mantelpiece. They were just coming
down the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be
missing. Going back, the others found that she had
remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken
a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones’s dressing-
table, and was holding it against her shoulder and
admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner.
The others reproached her sharply, and they went
outside. Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken

[19]

out for burial, and the barrel of beer in the scullery
was stove in with a kick from Boxer's hoof, otherwise
nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous reso¬
lution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse
should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that
no animal must ever live there.

The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball
and Napoleon called them together again.

'‘Comrades," said Snowball, “it is half-past six and
we have a long day before us. Today we begin the hay
harvest. But there is another matter that must be
attended to first."

The pigs now revealed that during the past three
months they had taught themselves to read and write
from an old spelling book which had belonged to Mr.
Jones's children and which had been thrown on the
rubbish heap. Napoleon sent for pots of black and
white paint and led the way down to the five-barred
gate that gave on to the main road. Then Snowball
(for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a
brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted
out Manor Farm from the top bar of the gate and
in its place painted Animal Farm. This was to be the
name of the farm from now onwards. After this they
went back to the farm buildings, where Snowball and
Napoleon sent for a ladder which they caused to be
set against the end wall of the big barn. They ex¬
plained that by their studies of the past three months
the pigs had succeeded in reducing the principles of
Animalism to Seven Commandments. These Seven
Commandments would now be inscribed on the wall;

[20]

they would form an unalterable law by which all the
animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after. With
some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance
himself on a ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to
work, with Squealer a few rungs below him holding
the paint-pot. The Commandments were written on
the tarred wall in great white letters that could be read
thirty yards away. They ran thus:

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs , or has wings, is a
friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

It was very neatly written, and except that “friend”
was written “freind” and one of the “S’s” was the
wrong way round, the spelling was correct all the way
through. Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of the
others. All the animals nodded in complete agree¬
ment, and the cleverer ones at once began to learn
the Commandments by heart.

“Now, comrades,” cried Snowball, throwing down
the paint-brush, “to the hayfield! Let us make it a
point of honour to get in the harvest more quickly
than Jones and his men could do.”

But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed

[21]

uneasy for some time past, set up a loud lowing. They
had not been milked for twenty-four hours, and their
udders were almost bursting. After a little thought, the
pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows fairly suc¬
cessfully, their trotters being well adapted to this task.
Soon there were five buckets of frothing creamy milk
at which many of the animals looked with consid¬
erable interest.

“What is going to happen to all that milk?” said
someone.

“Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our
mash,” said one of the hens.

“Never mind the milk, comrades!” cried Napoleon,
placing himself in front of the buckets. “That will be
attended to. The harvest is more important. Comrade
Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few
minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting.”

So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to
begin the harvest, and when they came back in the
evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared.

CHAPTER III

HOW they toiled and sweated to get the hay in!

But their efforts were rewarded, for the har¬
vest was an even bigger success than they had hoped.

Sometimes the work was hard; the implements had
been designed for human beings and not for animals,
and it was a great drawback that no animal was able
to use any tool that involved standing on his hind
legs. But the pigs were so clever that they could think
of a way round every difficulty. As for the horses, they
knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood
the business of mowing and raking far better than
Jones and his men had ever done. The pigs did not
actually work, but directed and supervised the others.
With their superior knowledge it was natural that they
should assume the leadership. Boxer and Clover would
harness themselves to the cutter or the horse-rake (no
bits or reins were needed in these days, of course) and
tramp steadily round and round the field with a pig
walking behind and calling out "Gee up, comrade !”
or "Whoa back, comrade!” as the case might be. And
every animal down to the humblest worked at turning
the hay and gathering it. Even the ducks and hens
toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps

[23 ]

of hay in their beaks. In the end they finished the
harvest in two days' less time than it had usually taken
Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest har¬
vest that the farm had ever seen. There was no wast¬
age whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp
eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. And not an
animal on the farm had stolen so much as a mouthful.

All through that summer the work of the farm went
like clockwork. The animals were happy as they had
never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of
food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was
truly their own food, produced by themselves and for
themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging
master. With the worthless parasitical human beings
gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was
more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals
were. They met with many difficulties— for instance,
later in the year, when they harvested the corn, they
had to tread it out in the ancient style and blow
away the chaff with their breath, since the farm pos¬
sessed no threshing machine— but the pigs with their
cleverness and Boxer with his tremendous muscles
always pulled them through. Boxer was the admira¬
tion of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in
Jones's time, but now he seemed more like three
horses than one; there were days when the entire work
of the farm seemed to rest upon his mighty shoulders.
From morning to night he was pushing and pulling,
always at the spot where the work was hardest. He had
made an arrangement with one of the cockerels to call
him in the mornings half an hour earlier than anyone

[24]

else, and would put in some volunteer labour at what¬
ever seemed to be most needed, before the regular
day’s work began. His answer to every problem, every
setback, was "I will work harder!”— which he had
adopted as his personal motto.

But everyone worked according to his capacity. The
hens and ducks, for instance, saved five bushels of
corn at the harvest by gathering up the stray grains.
Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the
quarrelling and biting and jealousy which had been
normal features of life in the old days had almost dis¬
appeared. Nobody shirked— or almost nobody. Mollie,
it was true, was not good at getting up in the morn¬
ings, and had a way of leaving work early on the
ground that there was a stone in her hoof. And the
behaviour of the cat was somewhat peculiar. It was
soon noticed that when there was work to be done the
cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours
on end, and then reappear at meal-times, or in the
evening after work was over, as though nothing had
happened. But she always made such excellent ex¬
cuses, and purred so affectionately, that it was im¬
possible not to believe in her good intentions. Old
Benjamin, the donkey, seemed quite unchanged since
the Rebellion. He did his work in the same slow
obstinate way as he had done it in Jones’s time, never
shirking and never volunteering for extra work either.
About the Rebellion and its results he would express
no opinion. When asked whether he was not happier
now that Jones was gone, he would say only "Donkeys
live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead

[251

donkey/' and the others had to be content with this
cryptic answer.

On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was an
hour later than usual, and after breakfast there was a
ceremony which was observed every week without
fail. First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had
found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of
Mrs. Jones’s and had painted on it a hoof and a horn
in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farm¬
house garden every Sunday morning. The flag was
green, Snowball explained, to represent the green
fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified
the future Republic of the Animals which would
arise when the human race had been finally over¬
thrown. After the hoisting of the flag all the animals
trooped into the big barn for a general assembly which
was known as the Meeting. Here the work of the com¬
ing week was planned out and resolutions were put
forward and debated. It was always the pigs who put
forward the resolutions. The other animals understood
how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions
of their own. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the
most active in the debates. But it was noticed that
these two were never in agreement: whatever sugges¬
tion either of them made, the other could be counted
on to oppose it. Even when it was resolved— a thing no
one could object to in itself— to set aside the small
paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for ani¬
mals who were past work, there was a stormy debate
Over the correct retiring age for each class of animal.
The Meeting always ended with the singing of Beasts
[26]

of England , and the afternoon was given up to recre¬
ation.

The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a head¬
quarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, they
studied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other neces¬
sary arts from books which they had brought out of the
farmhouse. Snowball also busied himself with organis¬
ing the other animals into what he called Animal
Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed
the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the
Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades'
Re-education Committee (the object of this was to
tame the rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Move¬
ment for the sheep, and various others, besides insti¬
tuting classes in reading and writing. On the whole,
these projects were a failure. The attempt to tame the
wild creatures, for instance, broke down almost imme¬
diately. They continued to behave very much as be¬
fore, and when treated with generosity, simply took
advantage of it. The cat joined the Re-education Com¬
mittee and was very active in it for some days. She
was seen one day sitting on a roof and talking to some
sparrows who were just out of her reach. She was tell¬
ing them that all animals were now comrades and
that any sparrow who chose could come and perch on
her paw; but the sparrows kept their distance.

The reading and writing classes, however, were a
great success. By the autumn almost every animal on
the farm was literate in some degree.

As for the pigs, they could already read and write
perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but

[27]

were not interested in reading anything except the
Seven Commandments. Muriel, the goat, could read
somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used
to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of
newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap. Ben¬
jamin could read as well as any pig, but never exer¬
cised his faculty. So far as he knew, he said, there was
nothing worth reading. Clover learnt the whole alpha¬
bet, but could not put words together. Boxer could
not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B,
C, D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then would
stand staring at the letters with his ears back, some¬
times shaking his forelock, trying with all his might
to remember what came next and never succeeding.
On several occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H,
but by the time he knew them, it was always discov¬
ered that he had forgotten A, B, C, and D. Finally he
decided to be content with the first four letters, and
used to write them out once or twice every day to
refresh his memory. Mollie refused to learn any but
the six letters which spelt her own name. She would
form these very neatly out of pieces of twig, and would
then decorate them with a flower or two and walk
round them admiring them.

None of the other animals on the farm could get
further than the letter A. It was also found that the
stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks,
were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by
heart. After much thought Snowball declared that the
Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a
single maxim, namely: “Four legs good, two legs
[28]

bad.” This, he said, contained the essential principle
of Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it
would be safe from human influences. The birds at
first objected, since it seemed to them that they also
had two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this
was not so.

“A bird’s wing, comrades,” he said, "is an organ
of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should
therefore be regarded as a leg. The distinguishing mark
of Man is the hand , the instrument with which he
does all his mischief.”

The birds did not understand Snowball’s long
words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the
humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim
by heart. Four legs good, two legs bad, was inscribed
on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Com¬
mandments and in bigger letters. When they had once
got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for
this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they
would all start bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad!
Four legs good, two legs bad!” and keep it up for hours
on end, never growing tired of it.

Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s commit¬
tees. He said that the education of the young was
more important than anything that could be done for
those who were already grown up. It happened that
Jessie and Bluebell had both whelped soon after the
hay harvest, giving birth between them to nine sturdy
puppies. As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took
them away from their mothers, saying that he would
make himself responsible for their education. He took

[29]

them up into a loft which could only be reached by a
ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in
such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot
their existence.

The mystery of where the milk went to was soon
cleared up. It was mixed every day into the pigs’ mash.
The early apples were now ripening, and the grass of
the orchard was littered with windfalls. The animals
had assumed as a matter of course that these would
be shared out equally; one day, however, the order
went forth that all the windfalls were to be collected
and brought to the harness-room for the use of the
pigs. At this some of the other animals murmured, but
it was no use. All the pigs were in full agreement on
this point, even Snowball and Napoleon. Squealer was
sent to make the necessary explanations to the others.

"Comrades!” he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope,
that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness
and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and
apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking
these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples
(this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain
substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a
pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole manage¬
ment and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day
and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for
your sake that we drink that milk and eat those ap¬
ples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs
failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones
would come back! Surely, comrades,” cried Squealer
almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and

[30]

whisking his tail, “surely there is no one among you
who wants to see Jones come back?”

Now if there was one thing that the animals were
completely certain of, it was that they did not want
Jones back. When it was put to them in this light,
they had no more to say. The importance of keeping
the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was
agreed without further argument that the milk and
the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples
when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs
alone.

CHAPTER IV

BY the late summer the news of what had happened
'on Animal Farm had spread across half the
county. Every day Snowball and Napoleon sent out
flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle
with the animals on neighbouring farms, tell them the
story of the Rebellion, and teach them the tune of
Beasts of England.

Most of this time Mr. Jones had spent sitting in the
taproom of the Red Lion at Willingdon, complaining
to anyone who would listen of the monstrous injustice
he had suffered in being turned out of his property by
a pack of good-for-nothing animals. The other farm¬
ers sympathised in principle, but they did not at first
give him much help. At heart, each of them was
secretly wondering whether he could not somehow
turn Jones's misfortune to his own advantage. It was
lucky that the owners of the two farms which ad¬
joined Animal Farm were on permanently bad terms.
One of them, which was named Foxwood, was a large,
neglected, old-fashioned farm, much overgrown by
woodland, with all its pastures worn out and its hedges
in a disgraceful condition. Its owner, Mr. Pilkington,
was an easy-going gentleman farmer who spent most

[32]

of his time in fishing or hunting according to the
season. The other farm, which was called Pinchfield,
was smaller and better kept. Its owner was a Mr. Fred¬
erick, a tough, shrewd man, perpetually involved in
lawsuits and with a name for driving hard bargains.
These two disliked each other so much that it was
difficult for them to come to any agreement, even in
defence of their own interests.

Nevertheless, they were both thoroughly frightened
by the rebellion on Animal Farm, and very anxious to
prevent their own animals from learning too much
about it. At first they pretended to laugh to scorn the
idea of animals managing a farm for themselves. The
whole thing would be over in a fortnight, they said.
They put it about that the animals on the Manor
Farm (they insisted on calling it the Manor Farm;
they would not tolerate the name "Animal Farm”)
were perpetually fighting among themselves and were
also rapidly starving to death. When time passed and
the animals had evidently not starved to death, Fred¬
erick and Pilkington changed their tune and began to
talk of the terrible wickedness that now flourished on
Animal Farm. It was given out that the animals there
practised cannibalism, tortured one another with red-
hot horseshoes, and had their females in common.
This was what came of rebelling against the laws of
Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said.

However, these stories were never fully believed.
Rumours of a wonderful farm, where the human be¬
ings had been turned out and the animals managed
their own affairs, continued to circulate in vague

[33 ]

and distorted forms, and throughout that year a wave
of rebelliousness ran through the countryside. Bulls
which had always been tractable suddenly turned sav¬
age, sheep broke down hedges and devoured the
clover, cows kicked the pail over, hunters refused
their fences and shot their riders on to the other side.
Above all, the tune and even the words of Beasts of
England were known everywhere. It had spread with
astonishing speed. The human beings could not con¬
tain their rage when they heard this song, though they
pretended to think it merely ridiculous. They could
not understand, they said, how even animals could
bring themselves to sing such contemptible rubbish.
Any animal caught singing it was given a flogging on
the spot. And yet the song was irrepressible. The
blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the pigeons cooed
it in the elms, it got into the din of the smithies and
the tune of the church bells. And when the human
beings listened to it, they secretly trembled, hearing
in it a prophecy of their future doom.

Early in October, when the corn was cut and
stacked and some of it was already threshed, a flight
of pigeons came whirling through the air and alighted
in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excite¬
ment. Jones and all his men, with half a dozen others
from Foxwood and Pinchfield, had entered the five-
barred gate and were coming up the cart-track that led
to the farm. They were all carrying sticks, except
Jones, who was marching ahead with a gun in his
hands. Obviously they were going to attempt the re¬
capture of the farm.

[ 34)

This had long been expected, and all preparations
had been made. Snowball, who had studied an old
book of Julius Caesar's campaigns which he had found
in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive opera¬
tions. He gave his orders quickly, and in a couple of
minutes every animal was at his post.

As the human beings approached the farm build¬
ings, Snowball launched his first attack. All the pi¬
geons, to the number of thirty-five, flew to and fro
over the men's heads and muted upon them from mid¬
air; and while the men were dealing with this, the
geese, who had been hiding behind the hedge, rushed
out and pecked viciously at the calves of their legs.
However, this was only a light skirmishing manoeuvre,
intended to create a little disorder, and the men easily
drove the geese off with their sticks. Snowball now
launched his second line of attack. Muriel, Benjamin,
and all the sheep, with Snowball at the head of them,
rushed forward and prodded and butted the men from
every side, while Benjamin turned round and lashed
at them with his small hoofs. But once again the men,
with their sticks and their hobnailed boots, were too
strong for them; and suddenly, at a squeal from Snow¬
ball, which was the signal for retreat, all the animals
turned and fled through the gateway into the yard.

The men gave a shout of triumph. They saw, as
they imagined, their enemies in flight, and they rushed
after them in disorder. This was just what Snowball
had intended. As soon as they were well inside the
yard, the three horses, the three cows, and the rest of
the pigs, who had been lying in ambush in the cow-

[35]

shed, suddenly emerged in their rear, cutting them off.
Snowball now gave the signal for the charge. He him¬
self dashed straight for Jones. Jones saw him coming,
raised his gun and fired. The pellets scored bloody
streaks along Snowball’s back, and a sheep dropped
dead. Without halting for an instant. Snowball flung
his fifteen stone against Jones’s legs. Jones was hurled
into a pile of dung and his gun flew out of his hands.
But the most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer, rear¬
ing up on his hind legs and striking out with his great
iron-shod hoofs like a stallion. His very first blow took
a stable-lad from Foxwood on the skull and stretched
him lifeless in the mud. At the sight, several men
dropped their sticks and tried to run. Panic overtook
them, and the next moment all the animals together
were chasing them round and round the yard. They
were gored, kicked, bitten, trampled on. There was
not an animal on the farm that did not take vengeance
on them after his own fashion. Even the cat suddenly
leapt off a roof onto a cowman’s shoulders and sank
her claws in his neck, at which he yelled horribly. At a
moment when the opening was clear, the men were
glad enough to rush out of the yard and make a bolt
for the main road. And so within five minutes of their
invasion they were in ignominious retreat by the same
way as they had come, with a flock of geese hissing
after them and pecking at their calves all the way.

All the men were gone except one. Back in the yard
Boxer was pawing with his hoof at the stable-lad who
lay face down in the mud, trying to turn him over.
The boy did not stir.

[36]

“He is dead/' said Boxer sorrowfully. “I had no in¬
tention of doing that. I forgot that I was wearing iron
shoes. Who will believe that I did not do this on
purpose?”

“No sentimentality, comrade!” cried Snowball, from
whose wounds the blood was still dripping. “War is
war. The only good human being is a dead one.”

“I have no wish to take life, not even human life,”
repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.

“Where is Mollie?” exclaimed somebody.

Mollie in fact was missing. For a moment there was
great alarm; it was feared that the men might have
harmed her in some way, or even carried her off with
them. In the end, however, she was found hiding in
her stall with her head buried among the hay in the
manger. She had taken to flight as soon as the gun
went off. And when the others came back from look¬
ing for her, it was to find that the stable-lad, who in
fact was only stunned, had already recovered and
made off.

The animals had now reassembled in the wildest
excitement, each recounting his own exploits in the
battle at the top of his voice. An impromptu celebra¬
tion of the victory was held immediately. The flag
was run up and Beasts of England was sung a number
of times, then the sheep who had been killed was
given a solemn funeral, a hawthorn bush being
planted on her grave. At the graveside Snowball made
a little speech, emphasising the need for all animals
to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be.

The animals decided unanimously to create a mili-

[37]

1

tary decoration, ''Animal Hero, First Class/’ whicli
was conferred there and then on Snowball and Boxer.
It consisted of a brass medal (they were really some
old horse-brasses which had been found in the harness-
room), to be worn on Sundays and holidays. There
was also "Animal Hero, Second Class,” which was con¬
ferred posthumously on the dead sheep.

There was much discussion as to what the battle
should be called. In the end, it was named the Battle
of the Cowshed, since that was where the ambush had
been sprung. Mr. Jones’s gun had been found lying in
the mud, and it was known that there was a supply
of cartridges in the farmhouse. It was decided to set
the gun up at the foot of the flagstaff, like a piece
of artillery, and to fire it twice a year— once on Oc¬
tober the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of the
Cowshed, and once on Midsummer Day, the anni¬
versary of the Rebellion.

[38]

CHAPTER V

AS winter drew on, Mollie became more and more
troublesome. She was late for work every
morning and excused herself by saying that she had
overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, al¬
though her appetite was excellent. On every kind of
pretext she would run away from work and go to the
drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing
at her own reflection in the water. But there were
also rumours of something more serious. One day as
Mollie strolled blithely into the yard, flirting her long
tail and chewing at a stalk of hay. Clover took her
aside.

"Mollie,1 " she said, "I have something very serious
to say to you. This morning I saw you looking over
the hedge that divides Animal Farm from Foxwood.
One of Mr. Pilkington's men was standing on the
other side of the hedge. And— I was a long way away,
but I am almost certain I saw this— he was talking to
you and you were allowing him to stroke your nose.
What does that mean, Mollie?"

"He didn't! I wasn't! It isn't true!" cried Mollie,
beginning to prance about and paw the ground.

"Mollie! Look me in the face. Do you give me your

[39]

word of honour that that man was not stroking your
nose?”

“It isn’t true!” repeated Mollie, but she could not
look Clover in the face, and the next moment she took
to her heels and galloped away into the field.

A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything
to the others, she went to Mollie’s stall and turned
over the straw with her hoof. Hidden under the straw
was a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of
ribbon of different colours.

Three days later Mollie disappeared. For some
weeks nothing was known of her whereabouts, then
the pigeons reported that they had seen her on the
other side of Willingdon. She was between the shafts
of a smart dogcart painted red and black, which was
standing outside a public-house. A fat red-faced man
in check breeches and gaiters, who looked like a publi¬
can, was stroking her nose and feeding her with sugar.
Her coat was newly clipped and she wore a scarlet
ribbon round her forelock. She appeared to be en¬
joying herself, so the pigeons said. None of the ani¬
mals ever mentioned Mollie again.

In January there came bitterly hard weather. The
earth was like iron, and nothing could be done in the
fields. Many meetings were held in the big barn, and
the pigs occupied themselves with planning out the
work of the coming season. It had come to be accepted
that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the
other animals, should decide all questions of farm
policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by a
majority vote. This arrangement would have worked

[40]

well enough if it had not been for the disputes be¬
tween Snowball and Napoleon. These two disagreed
at every point where disagreement was possible. If one
of them suggested sowing a bigger acreage with bar¬
ley, the other was certain to demand a bigger acreage
of oats, and if one of them said that such and such a
field was just right for cabbages, the other would de¬
clare that it was useless for anything except roots. Each
had his own following, and there were some violent
debates. At the Meetings Snowball often won over the
majority by his brilliant speeches, but Napoleon was
better at canvassing support for himself in between
times. He was especially successful with the sheep. Of
late the sheep had taken to bleating "Four legs good,
two legs bad" both in and out of season, and they
often interrupted the Meeting with this. It was
noticed that they were especially liable to break into
"Four legs good, two legs bad" at crucial moments
in Snowball's speeches. Snowball had made a close
study of some back numbers of the Farmer and Stock¬
breeder which he had found in the farmhouse, and
was full of plans for innovations and improvements.
He talked learnedly about field-drains, silage, and basic
slag, and had worked out a complicated scheme for
all the animals to drop their dung directly in the fields,
at a different spot every day, to save the labour of
cartage. Napoleon produced no schemes of his own,
but said quietly that Snowball's would come to
nothing, and seemed to be biding his time. But of all
their controversies, none was so bitter as the one that
took place over the windmill.

[41]

In the long pasture, not far from the farm build¬
ings, there was a small knoll which was the highest
point on the farm. After surveying the ground. Snow¬
ball declared that this was just the place for a wind¬
mill, which could be made to operate a dynamo and
supply the farm with electrical power. This would
light the stalls and warm them in winter, and would
also run a circular saw, a chaff-cutter, a mangel-slicer,
and an electric milking machine. The animals had
never heard of anything of this kind before (for the
farm was an old-fashioned one and had only the most
primitive machinery), and they listened in astonish¬
ment while Snowball conjured up pictures of fantastic
machines which would do their work for them while
they grazed at their ease in the fields or improved their
minds with reading and conversation.

Within a few weeks Snowball's plans for the wind¬
mill were fully worked out. The mechanical details
came mostly from three books which had belonged to
Mr. Jones— One Thousand Useful Things to Do
About the House , Every Man His Own Bricklayer ,
and Electricity for Beginners. Snowball used as his
study a shed which had once been used for incubators
and had a smooth wooden floor, suitable for drawing
on. He was closeted there for hours at a time. With
his books held open by a stone, and with a piece
of chalk gripped between the knuckles of his trotter,
he would move rapidly to and fro, drawing in line
after line and uttering little whimpers of excitement.
Gradually the plans grew into a complicated mass of
cranks and cog-wheels, covering more than half the

L42]

floor, which the other animals found completely un¬
intelligible but very impressive. All of them came to
look at Snowball's drawings at least once a day. Even
the hens and ducks came, and were at pains not to
tread on the chalk marks. Only Napoleon held aloof.
He had declared himself against the windmill from
the start. One day, however, he arrived unexpectedly
to examine the plans. He walked heavily round the
shed, looked closely at every detail of the plans and
snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little
while contemplating them out of the corner of his
eye; then suddenly he lifted his leg, urinated over the
plans, and walked out without uttering a word.

The whole farm was deeply divided on the subject
of the windmill. Snowball did not deny that to build
it would be a difficult business. Stone would have to
be quarried and built up into walls, then the sails
would have to be made and after that there would be
need for dynamos and cables. (How these were to be
procured. Snowball did not say.) But he maintained
that it could all be done in a year. And thereafter, he
declared, so much labour would be saved that the ani¬
mals would only need to work three days a week.
Napoleon, on the other hand, argued that the great
need of the moment was to increase food production,
and that if they wasted time on the windmill they
would all starve to death. The animals formed them¬
selves into two factions under the slogans, "Vote for
Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for
Napoleon and the full manger." Benjamin was the
only animal who did not side with either faction. He

[43]

refused to believe either that food would become
more plentiful or that the windmill would save work.
Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as
it had always gone on— that is, badly.

Apart from the disputes over the windmill, there
was the question of the defence of the farm. It was
fully realised that though the human beings had been
defeated in the Battle of the Cowshed they might
make another and more determined attempt to recap¬
ture the farm and reinstate Mr. Jones. They had all
the more reason for doing so because the news of their
defeat had spread across the countryside and made
the animals on the neighbouring farms more restive
than ever. As usual. Snowball and Napoleon were in
disagreement. According to Napoleon, what the ani¬
mals must do was to procure firearms and train them¬
selves in the use of them. According to Snowball, they
must send out more and more pigeons and stir up
rebellion among the animals on the other farms. The
one argued that if they could not defend themselves
they were bound to be conquered, the other argued
that if rebellions happened everywhere they would
have no need to defend themselves. The animals
listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could
not make up their minds which was right; indeed, they
always found themselves in agreement with the one
who was speaking at the moment.

At last the day came when Snowball's plans were
completed. At the Meeting on the following Sunday
the question of whether or not to begin work on the
windmill was to be put to the vote. When the animals

[44]

had assembled in the big barn, Snowball stood up and,
though occasionally interrupted by bleating from the
sheep, set forth his reasons for advocating the build¬
ing of the windmill. Then Napoleon stood up to reply.
He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense
and that he advised nobody to vote for it, and
promptly sat down again; he had spoken for barely
thirty seconds, and seemed almost indifferent as to
the effect he produced. At this Snowball sprang to his
feet, and shouting down the sheep, who had begun
bleating again, broke into a passionate appeal in favour
of the windmill. Until now the animals had been
about equally divided in their sympathies, but in a
moment Snowball's eloquence had carried them away.
In glowing sentences he painted a picture of Animal
Farm as it might be when sordid labour was lifted
from the animals' backs. His imagination had now run
far beyond chaff-cutters and turnip-slicers. Electricity,
he said, could operate threshing machines, ploughs,
harrows, rollers, and reapers and binders, besides sup¬
plying every stall with its own electric light, hot and
cold water, and an electric heater. By the time he had
finished speaking, there was no doubt as to which way
the vote would go. But just at this moment Napoleon
stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snow¬
ball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one
had ever heard him utter before.

At this there was a terrible baying sound outside,
and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars
came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight
for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in

[45]

time to escape their snapping jaws. In a moment he
was out of the door and they were after him. Too
amazed and frightened to speak, all the animals
crowded through the door to watch the chase. Snow¬
ball was racing across the long pasture that led to the
road. He was running as only a pig can run, but the
dogs were close on his heels. Suddenly he slipped and
it seemed certain that they had him. Then he was up
again, running faster than ever, then the dogs were
gaining on him again. One of them all but closed his
jaws on Snowball's tail, but Snowball whisked it free
just in time. Then he put on an extra spurt and, with a
few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the
hedge and was seen no more.

Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the
barn. In a moment the dogs came bounding back. At
first no one had been able to imagine where these
creatures came from, but the problem was soon solved:
they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken
away from their mothers and reared privately. Though
not yet full-grown, they were huge dogs, and as fierce-
looking as wolves. They kept close to Napoleon. It was
noticed that they wagged their tails to him in the
same way as the other dogs had been used to do to
Mr. Jones.

Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now
mounted on to the raised portion of the floor where
Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He
announced that from now on the Sunday-morning
Meetings would come to an end. They were unneces¬
sary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions

[46]

relating to the working of the farm would be settled
by a special committee of pigs, presided over by him¬
self. These would meet in private and afterwards com¬
municate their decisions to the others. The animals
would still assemble on Sunday mornings to salute the
flag, sing Beasts of England , and receive their orders
for the week; but there would be no more debates.

In spite of the shock that Snowball's expulsion had
given them, the animals were dismayed by this an¬
nouncement. Several of them would have protested
if they could have found the right arguments. Even
Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook
his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal
his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of
anything to say. Some of the pigs themselves, how¬
ever, were more articulate. Four young porkers in the
front row uttered shrill squeals of disapproval, and all
four of them sprang to their feet and began speaking
at once. But suddenly the dogs sitting round Napoleon
let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent
and sat down again. Then the sheep broke out into a
tremendous bleating of "Four legs good, two legs
bad!" which went on for nearly a quarter of an hour
and put an end to any chance of discussion.

Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to
explain the new arrangement to the others.

"Comrades," he said, "I trust that every animal here
appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has
made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not
imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On
the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No

[47]

one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that
all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to
let you make your decisions for yourselves. But some¬
times you might make the wrong decisions, comrades,
and then where should we be? Suppose you had de¬
cided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of wind¬
mills— Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better
than a criminal?”

“He fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed,”
said somebody.

“Bravery is not enough,” said Squealer. “Loyalty
and obedience are more important. And as to the
Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come
when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much
exaggerated. Discipline, comrades, iron discipline!
That is the watchword for today. One false step, and
our enemies would be upon us. Surely, comrades, you
do not want Jones back?”

Once again this argument was unanswerable. Cer¬
tainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the
holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to
bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer,
who had now had time to think things over, voiced
the general feeling by saying: “If Comrade Napoleon
says it, it must be right.” And from then on he
adopted the maxim, “Napoleon is always right,” in
addition to his private motto of “I will work harder.”

By this time the weather had broken and the spring
ploughing had begun. The shed where Snowball had
drawn his plans of the windmill had been shut up and
it was assumed that the plans had been rubbed off the

[48]

floor. Every Sunday morning at ten o'clock the ani¬
mals assembled in the big barn to receive their orders
for the week. The skull of old Major, now clean of
flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set
up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the
gun. After the hoisting of the flag, the animals were
required to file past the skull in a reverent manner be¬
fore entering the barn. Nowadays they did not sit all
together as they had done in the past. Napoleon, with
Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a
remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on
the front of the raised platform, with the nine young
dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other
pigs sitting behind. The rest of the animals sat facing
them in the main body of the barn. Napoleon read out
the orders for the week in a gruff soldierly style, and
after a single singing of Beasts of England , all the ani¬
mals dispersed.

On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the
animals were somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon
announce that the windmill was to be built after all.
He did not give any reason for having changed his
mind, but merely warned the animals that this extra
task would mean very hard work; it might even be
necessary to reduce their rations. The plans, however,
had all been prepared, down to the last detail. A
special committee of pigs had been at work upon
them for the past three weeks. The building of the
windmill, with various other improvements, was ex^
pected to take two years.

That evening Squealer explained privately to the

[49]

other animals that Napoleon had never in reality been
opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he
who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan
which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incu¬
bator shed had actually been stolen from among Na¬
poleon’s papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon’s
own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he
spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked
very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon’s cun¬
ning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply
as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dan¬
gerous character and a bad influence. Now that Snow¬
ball was out of the way, the plan could go forward
without his interference. This, said Squealer, was
something called tactics. He repeated a number of
times, "Tactics, comrades, tactics!” skipping round
and whisking his tail with a merry laugh. The animals
were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer
spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who hap¬
pened to be with him growled so threateningly, that
they accepted his explanation without further ques¬
tions.

/

[50]

CHAPTER VI

A LL that year the animals worked like slaves. But
XjL they were happy in their work; they grudged no
effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they
did was for the benefit of themselves and those of
their kind who would come after them, and not for a
pack of idle, thieving human beings.

Throughout the spring and summer they worked a
sixty-hour week, and in August Napoleon announced
that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as
well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal
who absented himself from it would have his rations
reduced by half. Even so, it was found necessary to
leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was a little
less successful than in the previous year, and two fields
which should have been sown with roots in the early
summer were not sown because the ploughing had not
been completed early enough. It was possible to fore¬
see that the coming winter would be a hard one.

The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.
There was a good quarry of limestone on the farm,
and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one
of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building
were at hand. But the problem the animals could not

[5i]

at first solve was how to break up the stone into pieces
of suitable size. There seemed no way of doing this
except with picks and crowbars, which no animal
could use, because no animal could stand on his hind
legs. Only after weeks of vain effort did the right idea
occur to somebody— namely, to utilise the force of
gravity. Huge boulders, far too big to be used as they
were, were lying all over the bed of the quarry. The
animals lashed ropes round these, and then all to¬
gether, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could lay
hold of the rope— even the pigs sometimes joined in at
critical moments— they dragged them with desperate
slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, where
they were toppled over the edge, to shatter to pieces
below. Transporting the stone when it was once
broken was comparatively simple. The horses carried
it off in cart-loads, the sheep dragged single blocks,
even Muriel and Benjamin yoked themselves into an
old governess-cart and did their share. By late summer
a sufficient store of stone had accumulated, and then
the building began, under the superintendence of the
pigs.

But it was a slow, laborious process. Frequently it
took a whole day of exhausting effort to drag a single
boulder to the top of the quarry, and sometimes when
it was pushed over the edge it failed to break. Nothing
could have been achieved without Boxer, whose
strength seemed equal to that of all the rest of the
animals put together. When the boulder began to slip
and the animals cried out in despair at finding them¬
selves dragged down the hill, it was always Boxer who

[ 52 1

strained himself against the rope and brought the
boulder to a stop. To see him toiling up the slope inch
by inch, his breath coming fast, the tips of his hoofs
clawing at the ground, and his great sides matted with
sweat, filled everyone with admiration. Clover warned
him sometimes to be careful not to overstrain himself,
but Boxer would never listen to her. His two slogans,
“I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right,"
seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems. He
had made arrangements with the cockerel to call him
three-quarters of an hour earlier in the mornings in¬
stead of half an hour. And in his spare moments, of
which there were not many nowadays, he would go
alone to the quarry, collect a load of broken stone, and
drag it down to the site of the windmill unassisted.

The animals were not badly off throughout that
summer, in spite of the hardness of their work. If they
had no more food than they had had in Jones’s day, at
least they did not have less. The advantage of only
having to feed themselves, and not having to support
five extravagant human beings as well, was so great
that it would have taken a lot of failures to outweigh
it. And in many ways the animal method of doing
things was more efficient and saved labour. Such jobs
as weeding, for instance, could be done with a
thoroughness impossible to human beings. And again,
since no animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence
off pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of la¬
bour on the upkeep of hedges and gates. Nevertheless,
as the summer wore on, various unforeseen shortages
began to make themselves felt. There was need of

[53]

paraffin oil, nails, string, dog biscuits, and iron for the
horses' shoes, none of which could be produced on the
farm. Later there would also be need for seeds and
artificial manures, besides various tools and, finally,
the machinery for the windmill. How these were to be
procured, no one was able to imagine.

One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled
to receive their orders, Napoleon announced that he
had decided upon a new policy. From now onwards
Animal Farm would engage in trade with the neigh¬
bouring farms: not, of course, for any commercial pur¬
pose, but simply in order to obtain certain materials
which were urgently necessary. The needs of the wind¬
mill must override everything else, he said. He was
therefore making arrangements to sell a stack of hay
and part of the current year's wheat crop, and later
on, if more money were needed, it would have to be
made up by the sale of eggs, for which there was al¬
ways a market in Willingdon. The hens, said Na¬
poleon, should welcome this sacrifice as their own
special contribution towards the building of the wind¬
mill.

Once again the animals were conscious of a vague
uneasiness. Never to have any dealings with human be¬
ings, never to engage in trade, never to make use of
money— had not these been among the earliest resolu¬
tions passed at that first triumphant Meeting after
Jones was expelled? All the animals remembered pass¬
ing such resolutions: or at least they thought that they
remembered it. The four young pigs who had pro¬
tested when Napoleon abolished the Meetings raised

[54]

their voices timidly, but they were promptly silenced
by a tremendous growling from the dogs. Then, as
usual, the sheep broke into "Four legs good, two legs
bad!” and the momentary awkwardness was smoothed
over. Finally Napoleon raised his trotter for silence
and announced that he had already made all the ar¬
rangements. There would be no need for any of the
animals to come in contact with human beings, which
would clearly be most undesirable. He intended to
take the whole burden upon his own shoulders. A Mr.
Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon, had agreed
to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the
outside world, and would visit the farm every Monday
morning to receive his instructions. Napoleon ended
his speech with his usual cry of "Long live Animal
Farm!”, and after the singing of Beasts of England the
animals were dismissed.

Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and
set the animals' minds at rest. He assured them that
the resolution against engaging in trade and using
money had never been passed, or even suggested. It
was pure imagination, probably traceable in the begin¬
ning to lies circulated by Snowball. A few animals
still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked them
shrewdly, "Are you certain that this is not something
that you have dreamed, comrades? Have you any rec¬
ord of such a resolution? Is it written down any¬
where?” And since it was certainly true that nothing
of the kind existed in writing, the animals were satis¬
fied that they had been mistaken.

Every Monday Mr. Whymper visited the farm as

[55]

had been arranged. He was a sly-looking little man
with side whiskers, a solicitor in a very small way of
business, but sharp enough to have realised earlier
than anyone else that Animal Farm would need a
broker and that the commissions would be worth hav¬
ing. The animals watched his coming and going with
a kind of dread, and avoided him as much as possible.
Nevertheless, the sight of Napoleon, on all fours, de¬
livering orders to Whymper, who stood on two legs,
roused their pride and partly reconciled them to the
new arrangement. Their relations with the human race
were now not quite the same as they had been before.
The human beings did not hate Animal Farm any less
now that it was prospering; indeed, they hated it more
than ever. Every human being held it as an article of
faith that the farm would go bankrupt sooner or later,
and, above all, that the windmill would be a failure.
They would meet in the public-houses and prove to
one another by means of diagrams that the windmill
was bound to fall down, or that if it did stand up, then
that it would never work. And yet, against their will,
they had developed a certain respect for the efficiency
with which the animals were managing their own af¬
fairs. One symptom of this was that they had begun
to call Animal Farm by its proper name and ceased to
pretend that it was called the Manor Farm. They had
also dropped their championship of Jones, who had
given up hope of getting his farm back and gone to
live in another part of the county. Except through
Whymper, there was as yet no contact between Ani¬
mal Farm and the outside world, but there were con-

[5^]

stant rumours that Napoleon was about to enter into
a definite business agreement either with Mr. Pilking-
ton of Foxwood or with Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield—
but never, it was noticed, with both simultaneously.

It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved
into the farmhouse and took up their residence there.
Again the animals seemed to remember that a resolu¬
tion against this had been passed in the early days, and
again Squealer was able to convince them that this
was not the case. It was absolutely necessary, he said,
that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should
have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited
to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken
to speaking of Napoleon under the title of “Leader”)
to live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless,
some of the animals were disturbed when they heard
that the pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen
and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but
also slept in the beds. Boxer passed it off as usual with
“Napoleon is always right!”, but Clover, who thought
she remembered a definite ruling against beds, went
to the end of the barn and tried to puzzle out the
Seven Commandments which were inscribed there.
Finding herself unable to read more than individual
letters, she fetched Muriel.

“Muriel,” she said, “read me the Fourth Command¬
ment. Does it not say something about never sleeping
in a bed?”

With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.

“It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with
sheets * ” she announced finally.

[57]

Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that
the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets; but as
it was there on the wall, it must have done so. And
Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment,
attended by two or three dogs, was able to put the
whole matter in its proper perspective.

"You have heard, then, comrades,” he said, "that
we pigs now sleep in the beds of the farmhouse? And
why not? You did not suppose, surely, that there was
ever a ruling against beds? A bed merely means a place
to sleep in. A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly
regarded. The rule was against sheets7 which are a
human invention. We have removed the sheets from
the farmhouse beds, and sleep between blankets. And
very comfortable beds they are too! But not more
comfortable than we need, I can tell you, comrades,
with all the brainwork we have to do nowadays. You
would not rob us of our repose, would you, comrades?
You would not have us too tired to carry out our
duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?”

The animals reassured him on this point immedi¬
ately, and no more was said about the pigs sleeping in
the farmhouse beds. And when, some days afterwards,
it was announced that from now on the pigs would get
up an hour later in the mornings than the other ani¬
mals, no complaint was made about that either.

By the autumn the animals were tired but happy.
They had had a hard year, and after the sale of part of
the hay and corn, the stores of food for the winter
were none too plentiful, but the windmill compen¬
sated for everything. It was almost half built now.

158]

After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry
weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever,
thinking it well worth while to plod to and fro all day
with blocks of stone if by doing so they could raise the
walls another foot. Boxer would even come out at
nights and work for an hour or two on his own by the
light of the harvest moon. In their spare moments
the animals would walk round and round the half-
finished mill, admiring the strength and perpendicu¬
larity of its walls and marvelling that they should
ever have been able to build anything so imposing.
Only old Benjamin refused to grow enthusiastic about
the windmill, though, as usual, he would utter nothing
beyond the cryptic remark that donkeys live a long
time.

November came, with raging south-west winds.
Building had to stop because it was now too wet to
mix the cement. Finally there came a night when the
gale was so violent that the farm buildings rocked on
their foundations and several tiles were blown off the
roof of the barn. The hens woke up squawking with
terror because they had all dreamed simultaneously of
hearing a gun go off in the distance. In the morning
the animals came out of their stalls to find that the
flagstaff had been blown down and an elm tree at the
foot of the orchard had been plucked up like a radish.
They had just noticed this when a cry of despair broke
from every animal's throat. A terrible sight had met
their eyes. The windmill was in ruins.

With one accord they dashed down to the spot.
Napoleon, who seldom moved out of a walk, raced

[59]

ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of all
their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones
they had broken and carried so laboriously scattered
all around. Unable at first to speak, they stood gazing
mournfully at the litter of fallen stone. Napoleon
paced to and fro in silence, occasionally snuffing at
the ground. His tail had grown rigid and twitched
sharply from side to side, a sign in him of intense
mental activity. Suddenly he halted as though his
mind were made up.

"Comrades/' he said quietly, "do you know who is
responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has
come in the night and overthrown our windmill?
SNOWBALL!" he suddenly roared in a voice of
thunder. "Snowball has done this thing! In sheer ma¬
lignity, thinking to set back our plans and avenge him¬
self for his ignominious expulsion, this traitor has
crept here under cover of night and destroyed our
work of nearly a year. Comrades, here and now I pro¬
nounce the death sentence upon Snowball. 'Animal
Hero, Second Class,' and half a bushel of apples to
any animal who brings him to justice. A full bushel
to anyone who captures him alive!"

The animals were shocked beyond measure to learn
that even Snowball could be guilty of such an action.
There was a cry of indignation, and everyone began
thinking out ways of catching Snowball if he should
ever come back. Almost immediately the footprints
of a pig were discovered in the grass at a little distance
from the knoll. They could only be traced for a few
yards, but appeared to lead to a hole in the hedge.

[60]

Napoleon snuffed deeply at them and pronounced
them to be Snowball's. He gave it as his opinion that
Snowball had probably come from the direction of
Foxwood Farm.

“No more delays, comrades!" cried Napoleon when
the footprints had been examined. “There is work to
be done. This very morning we begin rebuilding the
windmill, and we will build all through the winter,
rain or shine. We will teach this miserable traitor that
he cannot undo our work so easily. Remember, com¬
rades, there must be no alteration in our plans: they
shall be carried out to the day. Forward, comrades!
Long live the windmill! Long live Animal Farm!"

CHAPTER VII

IT was a bitter winter. The stormy weather was
followed by sleet and snow, and then by a hard
frost which did not break till well into February. The
animals carried on as best they could with the rebuild¬
ing of the windmill, well knowing that the outside
world was watching them and that the envious human
beings would rejoice and triumph if the mill were not
finished on time.

Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to
believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the
windmill: they said that it had fallen down because
the walls were too thin. The animals knew that this
was not the case. Still, it had been decided to build
the walls three feet thick this time instead of eighteen
inches as before, which meant collecting much larger
quantities of stone. For a long time the quarry was full
of snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some
progress was made in the dry frosty weather that
followed, but it was cruel work, and the animals could
not feel so hopeful about it as they had felt before.
They were always cold, and usually hungry as well.
Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart. Squealer
made excellent speeches on the joy of service and the
[62]

dignity of labour, but the other animals found more
inspiration in Boxer's strength and his never-failing
cry of “1 will work harder!"

In January food fell short. The corn ration was
drastically reduced, and it was announced that an
extra potato ration would be issued to make up for it.
Then it was discovered that the greater part of the
potato crop had been frosted in the clamps, which had
not been covered thickly enough. The potatoes had
become soft and discoloured, and only a few were
edible. For days at a time the animals had nothing
to eat but chaff and mangels. Starvation seemed to
stare them in the face.

It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from
the outside world. Emboldened by the collapse of the
windmill, the human beings were inventing fresh lies
about Animal Farm. Once again it was being put
about that all the animals were dying of famine and
disease, and that they were continually fighting among
themselves and had resorted to cannibalism and in¬
fanticide. Napoleon was well aware of the bad results
that might follow if the real facts of the food situation
were known, and he decided to make use of Mr.
Whymper to spread a contrary impression. Hitherto
the animals had had little or no contact with
Whymper on his weekly visits: now, however, a few
selected animals, mostly sheep, were instructed to re¬
mark casually in his hearing that rations had been
increased. In addition, Napoleon ordered the almost
empty bins in the store-shed to be filled nearly to the
brim with sand, which was then covered up with what

[63 ]

remained of the grain and meal. On some suitable
pretext Whymper was led through the store-shed and
allowed to catch a glimpse of the bins. He was de¬
ceived, and continued to report to the outside world
that there was no food shortage on Animal Farm.

Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became
obvious that it would be necessary to procure some
more grain from somewhere. In these days Napoleon
rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the
farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce-
looking dogs. When he did emerge, it was in a cere¬
monial manner, with an escort of six dogs who closely
surrounded him and growled if anyone came too near.
Frequently he did not even appear on Sunday morn¬
ings, but issued his orders through one of the other
pigs, usually Squealer.

One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the
hens, who had just come in to lay again, must sur¬
render their eggs. Napoleon had accepted, through
Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week.
The price of these would pay for enough grain and
meal to keep the farm going till summer came on and
conditions were easier.

When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible
outcry. They had been warned earlier that this sacri¬
fice might be necessary, but had not believed that it
would really happen. They were just getting their
clutches ready for the spring sitting, and they pro¬
tested that to take the eggs away now was murder.
For the first time since the expulsion of Jones, there
was something resembling a rebellion. Led by three

[64]

young Black Minorca pullets, the hens made a de¬
termined effort to thwart Napoleon’s wishes. Their
method was to fly up to the rafters and there lay their
eggs, which smashed to pieces on the floor. Napoleon
acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens’ ra¬
tions to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giv¬
ing so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be pun¬
ished by death. The dogs saw to it that these orders
were carried out. For five days the hens held out, then
they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes.
Nine hens had died in the meantime. Their bodies
were buried in the orchard, and it was given out that
they had died of coccidiosis. Whymper heard nothing
of this affair, and the eggs were duly delivered, a
grocer’s van driving up to the farm once a week to take
them away.

All this while no more had been seen of Snowball.
He was rumoured to be hiding on one of the neigh¬
bouring farms, either Foxwood or Pinchfield. Na¬
poleon was by this time on slightly better terms with
the other farmers than before. It happened that there
was in the yard a pile of timber which had been
stacked there ten years earlier when a beech spinney
was cleared. It was well seasoned, and Whymper had
advised Napoleon to sell it; both Mr. Pilkington and
Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. Napoleon was
hesitating between the two, unable to make up his
mind. It was noticed that whenever he seemed on the
point of coming to an agreement with Frederick,
Snowball was declared to be in hiding at Foxwood,

[65]

while, when he inclined towards Pilkington, Snowball
was said to be at Pinchfield.

Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was
discovered. Snowball was secretly frequenting the farm
by night! The animals were so disturbed that they
could hardly sleep in their stalls. Every night, it was
said, he came creeping in under cover of darkness and
performed all kinds of mischief. He stole the corn, he
upset the milk-pails, he broke the eggs, he trampled
the seed-beds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees.
Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to
attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a
drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that
Snowball had come in the night and done it, and
when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole
farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it
down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believ¬
ing this even after the mislaid key was found under a
sack of meal. The cows declared unanimously that
Snowball crept into their stalls and milked them in
their sleep. The rats, which had been troublesome
that winter, were also said to be in league with Snow¬
ball.

Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investi¬
gation into Snowball's activities. With his dogs in
attendance he set out and made a careful tour of
inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals
following at a respectful distance. At every few steps
Napoleon stopped and snuffed the ground for traces
of Snowball's footsteps, which, he said, he could de¬
tect by the smell. He snuffed in every corner, in the
[66]

barn, in the cowshed, in the hen-houses, in the vege¬
table garden, and found traces of Snowball almost
everywhere. He would put his snout to the ground,
give several deep sniffs, and exclaim in a terrible voice,
“Snowball! He has been here! I can smell him dis¬
tinctly!" and at the word “Snowball" all the dogs let
out blood-curdling growls and showed their side teeth.

The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed
to them as though Snowball were some kind of in¬
visible influence, pervading the air about them and
menacing them with all kinds of dangers. In the eve¬
ning Squealer called them together, and with an
alarmed expression on his face told them that he had
some serious news to report.

“Comrades!" cried Squealer, making little nervous
skips, “a most terrible thing has been discovered.
Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield
Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take
our farm away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide
when the attack begins. But there is worse than that.
We had thought that Snowball's rebellion was caused
simply by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong,
comrades. Do you know what the real reason was?
Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start!
He was Jones's secret agent all the time. It has all
been proved by documents which he left behind him
and which we have only just discovered. To my mind
this explains a great deal, comrades. Did we not see
for ourselves how he attempted— fortunately without
success— to get us defeated and destroyed at the Battle
of the Cowshed?"

[67]

The animals were stupefied. This was a wickedness
far outdoing Snowball's destruction of the windmill.
But it was some minutes before they could fully take
it in. They all remembered, or thought they remem¬
bered, how they had seen Snowball charging ahead of
them at the Battle of the Cowshed, how he had rallied
and encouraged them at every turn, and how he had
not paused for an instant even when the pellets from
Jones's gun had wounded his back. At first it was a
little difficult to see how this fitted in with his being
on Jones's side. Even Boxer, who seldom asked ques¬
tions, was puzzled. He lay down, tucked his fore hoofs
beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard effort
managed to formulate his thoughts.

"I do not believe that," he said. “Snowball fought
bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him my¬
self. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, First Class/
immediately afterwards?"

“That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now
—it is all written down in the secret documents that
we have found— that in reality he was trying to lure
us to our doom."

“But he was wounded," said Boxer. “We all saw
him running with blood."

“That was part of the arrangement!" cried Squealer.
“Jones's shot only grazed him. I could show you this
in his own writing, if you were able to read it. The
plot was for Snowball, at the critical moment, to give
the signal for flight and leave the field to the enemy.
And he very nearly succeeded— I will even say, com¬
rades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for

[68]

0

our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon. Do you not
remember how, just at the moment when Jones and
his men had got inside the yard, Snowball suddenly
turned and fled, and many animals followed him? And
do you not remember, too, that it was just at that
moment, when panic was spreading and all seemed
lost, that Comrade Napoleon sprang forward with a
cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in
Jones's leg? Surely you remember that, comrades?"
exclaimed Squealer, frisking from side to side.

Now when Squealer described the scene so graphi¬
cally, it seemed to the animals that they did remember
it. At any rate, they remembered that at the critical
moment of the battle Snowball had turned to flee. But
Boxer was still a little uneasy.

"I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the
beginning," he said finally. "What he has done since
is different. But I believe that at the Battle of the
Cowshed he was a good comrade."

"Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," announced
Squealer, speaking very slowly and firmly, has stated
categorically— categorically, comrade— that Snowball
was Jones's agent from the very beginning-yes, and
from long before the Rebellion was ever thought of."

"Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade

Napoleon says it, it must be right."

"That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer,
but it was noticed he cast a very ugly look at Boxer
with his little twinkling eyes. He turned to go, then
paused and added impressively: I warn every animal
on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open. For we

[69]

have reason to think that some of Snowball's secret
agents are lurking among us at this moment!"

Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon
ordered all the animals to assemble in the yard. When
they were all gathered together, Napoleon emerged
from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he
had recently awarded himself “Animal Hero, First
Class," and “Animal Hero, Second Class"), with
his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering
growls that sent shivers down all the animals' spines.
They all cowered silently in their places, seeming to
know in advance that some terrible thing was about
to happen.

Napoleon stood sternly surveying his audience; then
he uttered a high-pitched whimper. Immediately the
dogs bounded forward, seized four of the pigs by the
ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and terror,
to Napoleon’s feet. The pigs' ears were bleeding, the
dogs had tasted blood, and for a few moments they
appeared to go quite mad. To the amazement of every¬
body, three of them flung themselves upon Boxer.
Boxer saw them coming and put out his great hoof,
caught a dog in mid-air, and pinned him to the
ground. The dog shrieked for mercy and the other
two fled with their tails between their legs. Boxer
looked at Napoleon to know whether he should crush
the dog to death or let it go. Napoleon appeared to
change countenance, and sharply ordered Boxer to let
the dog go, whereat Boxer lifted his hoof, and the dog
slunk away, bruised and howling.

Presently the tumult died down. The four pigs

[ 7° ]

waited, trembling, with guilt written on every line of
their countenances. Napoleon now called upon them
to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs
as had protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday
Meetings. Without any further prompting they con¬
fessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snow¬
ball ever since his expulsion, that they had collabo¬
rated with him in destroying the windmill, and that
they had entered into an agreement with him to hand
over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that
Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had
been Jones's secret agent for years past. When they
had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore
their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon
demanded whether any other animal had anything to
confess.

The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the
attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward
and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in a
dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders.
They, too, were slaughtered. Then a goose came for¬
ward and confessed to having secreted six ears of corn
during the last year's harvest and eaten them in the
night. Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in
the drinking pool— urged to do this, so she said, by
Snowball— and two other sheep confessed to having
murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower
of Napoleon, by chasing him round and round a bon¬
fire when he was suffering from a cough. They were
all slain on the spot. And so the tale of confessions
and executions went on, until there was a pile of

[ 7i ]

corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was
heavy with the smell of blood, which had been un¬
known there since the expulsion of Jones.

When it was all over, the remaining animals, ex¬
cept for the pigs and dogs, crept away in a body. They
were shaken and miserable. They did not know which
was more shocking— the treachery of the animals who
had leagued themselves with Snowball, or the cruel
retribution they had just witnessed. In the old days
there had often been scenes of bloodshed equally ter¬
rible, but it seemed to all of them that it was far worse
now that it was happening among themselves. Since
Jones had left the farm, until today, no animal had
killed another animal. Not even a rat had been killed.
They had made their way on to the little knoll where
the half-finished windmill stood, and with one accord
they all lay down as though huddling together for
warmth— Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows, the
sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens— everyone,
indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared
just before Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble.
For some time nobody spoke. Only Boxer remained
on his feet. He fidgeted to and fro, swishing his long
black tail against his sides and occasionally uttering a
little whinny of surprise. Finally he said:

“I do not understand it. I would not have believed
that such things could happen on our farm. It must
be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I
see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall
get up a full hour earlier in the mornings/'

And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made

[72 ]

for the quarry. Having got there, he collected two suc¬
cessive loads of stone and dragged them down to the
windmill before retiring for the night.

The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking.
The knoll where they were lying gave them a wide
prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm
was within their view— the long pasture stretching
down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the
drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young
wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the
farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chim¬
neys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the
bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the
sun. Never had the farm— and with a kind of surprise
they remembered that it was their own farm, every
inch of it their own property— appeared to the animals
so desirable a place. As Clover looked down the hill¬
side her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken
her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was
not what they had aimed at when they had set them¬
selves years ago to work for the overthrow of the hu¬
man race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were
not what they had looked forward to on that night
when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she
herself had had any picture of the future, it had been
of a society of animals set free from hunger and the
whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity,
the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected
the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the
night of Major’s speech. Instead— she did not know
why— they had come to a time when no one dared

l 73 ]

speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed
everywhere, and when you had to watch your com¬
rades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking
crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobe¬
dience in her mind. She knew that, even as things
were, they were far better off than they had been in
the days of Jones, and that before all else it was need¬
ful to prevent the return of the human beings. What¬
ever happened she would remain faithful, work hard,
carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept
the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for
this that she and all the other animals had hoped and
toiled. It was not for this that they had built the wind¬
mill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun. Such were
her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express
them.

At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute
for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing
Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round
her took it up, and they sang it three times over— very
tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they
had never sung it before.

They had just finished singing it for the third time
when Squealer, attended by two dogs, approached
them with the air of having something important to
say. He announced that, by a special decree of Com¬
rade Napoleon, Beasts of England had been abolished.
From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.

The animals were taken aback.

“Why?” cried Muriel.

“It is no longer needed, comrade,” said Squealer
[74]

stiffly. “Beasts of England was the song of the Rebel¬
lion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execu¬
tion of the traitors this afternoon was the final act.
The enemy both external and internal has been de¬
feated. In Beasts of England we expressed our longing
for a better society in days to come. But that society
has now been established. Clearly this song has no
longer any purpose/'

Frightened though they were, some of the animals
might possibly have protested, but at this moment the
sheep set up their usual bleating of “Four legs good,
two legs bad," which went on for several minutes and
put an end to the discussion.

So Beasts of England was heard no more. In its
place Minimus, the poet, had composed another song
which began:

Animal Farm , Animal Farm ,

Never through me shalt thou come to harm!

and this was sung every Sunday morning after the
hoisting of the flag. But somehow neither the words
nor the tune ever seemed to the animals to come up to
Beasts of England .

[7?]

CHAPTER VIII

A FEW days later, when the terror caused by the
executions had died down, some of the animals
remembered— or thought they remembered— that the
Sixth Commandment decreed “No animal shall kill
any other animal/' And though no one cared to men¬
tion it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was
felt that the killings which had taken place did not
square with this. Clover asked Benjamin to read her
the Sixth Commandment, and when Benjamin, as
usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters,
she fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment
for her. It ran: “No animal shall kill any other animal
without cause.” Somehow or other, the last two words
had slipped out of the animals' memory. But they
saw now that the Commandment had not been vio¬
lated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the
traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball.

Throughout the year the animals worked even
harder than they had worked in the previous year. To
rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as be¬
fore, and to finish it by the appointed date, together
with the regular work of the farm, was a tremendous
labour. There were times when it seemed to the ani-

[76]

mals that they worked longer hours and fed no better
than they had done in Jones’s day. On Sunday morn-
ings Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper with
his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures
proving that the production of every class of foodstuff
had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred
per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might
be. The animals saw no reason to disbelieve him,
especially as they could no longer remember very
clearly what conditions had been like before the Re¬
bellion. All the same, there were days when they felt
that they would sooner have had less figures and more
food.

All orders were now issued through Squealer or one
of the other pigs. Napoleon himself was not seen in
public as often as once in a fortnight. When he did
appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of
dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of
him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a
loud “cock-a-doodle-doo” before Napoleon spoke.
Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon in¬
habited separate apartments from the others. He took
his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and
always ate from the Crown Derby dinner service
which had been in the glass cupboard in the drawing¬
room. It was also announced that the gun would be
fired every year on Napoleon’s birthday, as well as on
the other two anniversaries.

Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as “Na¬
poleon.” He was always referred to in formal style as
“our Leader, Comrade Napoleon,” and the pigs liked

[77]

to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals,
Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Duck¬
lings' Friend, and the like. In his speeches. Squealer
would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of
Napoleon's wisdom, the goodness of his heart, and
the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even
and especially the unhappy animals who still lived
in ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had be¬
come usual to give Napoleon the credit for every suc¬
cessful achievement and every stroke of good fortune.
You would often hear one hen remark to another,
“Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Na¬
poleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows,
enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, “Thanks
to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excel¬
lent this water tastes!" The general feeling on the
farm was well expressed in a poem entitled Comrade
Napoleon , which was composed by Minimus and
which ran as follows:

Friend of the fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on
Fire when I gaze at thy
Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky ,

Comrade Napoleon!

Thou art the giver of
All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

[78]

Every beast great or small
Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all,

Comrade Napoleon l

Had I a sucking-pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,

He should have learned to be
Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeak should be
“Comrade Napoleon!”

Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be
inscribed on the wall of the big barn, at the opposite
end from the Seven Commandments. It was sur¬
mounted by a portrait of Napoleon, in profile, exe¬
cuted by Squealer in white paint.

Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Na¬
poleon was engaged in complicated negotiations with
Frederick and Pilkington. The pile of timber was still
unsold. Of the two, Frederick was the more anxious
to get hold of it, but he would not offer a reasonable
price. At the same time there were renewed rumours
that Frederick and his men were plotting to attack
Animal Farm and to destroy the windmill, the build¬
ing of which had aroused furious jealousy in him.
Snowball was known to be still skulking on Pinchfield
Farm. In the middle of the summer the animals were
alarmed to hear that three hens had come forward and
confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had entered
into a plot to murder Napoleon. They were executed

[79]

immediately, and fresh precautions for Napoleon’s
safety were taken. Four dogs guarded his bed at night,
one at each corner, and a young pig named Pinkeye
was given the task of tasting all his food before he ate
it, lest it should be poisoned.

At about the same time it was given out that Na¬
poleon had arranged to sell the pile of timber to Mr.
Pilkington; he was also going to enter into a regular
agreement for the exchange of certain products be¬
tween Animal Farm and Foxwood. The relations be¬
tween Napoleon and Pilkington, though they were
only conducted through Whymper, were now almost
friendly. The animals distrusted Pilkington, as a hu¬
man being, but greatly preferred him to Frederick,
whom they both feared and hated. As the summer
wore on, and the windmill neared completion, the
rumours of an impending treacherous attack grew
stronger and stronger. Frederick, it was said, intended
to bring against them • twenty men all armed with
guns, and he had already bribed the magistrates and
police, so that if he could once get hold of the title-
deeds of Animal Farm they would ask no questions.
Moreover, terrible stories were leaking out from
Pinchfield about the cruelties that Frederick practised
upon his animals. He had flogged an old horse to
death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by
throwing it into the furnace, he amused himself in
the evenings by making cocks fight with splinters of
razor-blade tied to their spurs. The animals’ blood
boiled with rage when they heard of these things be-
. ing done to their comrades, and sometimes they
[So]

clamoured to be allowed to go out in a body and at¬
tack Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set
the animals free. But Squealer counselled them to
avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade Napoleon's
strategy.

Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to
run high. One Sunday morning Napoleon appeared in
the barn and explained that he had never at any time
contemplated selling the pile of timber to Frederick;
he considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to have
dealings with scoundrels of that description. The pi¬
geons who were still sent out to spread tidings of the
Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on
Foxwood, and were also ordered to drop their former
slogan of "Death to Humanity" in favour of "Death
to Frederick." In the late summer yet another of
Snowball's machinations was laid bare. The wheat
crop was full of weeds, and it was discovered that on
one of his nocturnal visits Snowball had mixed weed
seeds with the seed corn. A gander who had been
privy to the plot had confessed his guilt to Squealer
and immediately committed suicide by swallowing
deadly nightshade berries. The animals now also
learned that Snowball had never— as many of them
had believed hitherto— received the order of "Animal
Hero, First Class." This was merely a legend which
had been spread some time after the Battle of the
Cowshed by Snowball himself. So far from being
decorated, he had been censured for showing cow¬
ardice in the battle. Once again some of the animals
heard this with a certain bewilderment, but Squealer

[Si]

was soon able to convince them that their memories
had been at fault.

In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting ef¬
fort— for the harvest had to be gathered at almost the
same time— the windmill was finished. The machinery
had still to be installed, and Whymper was negoti¬
ating the purchase of it, but the structure was com¬
pleted. In the teeth of every difficulty, in spite of
inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck
and of Snowball’s treachery, the work had been fin¬
ished punctually to the very day! Tired out but proud,
the animals walked round and round their master¬
piece, which appeared even more beautiful in their
eyes than when it had been built the first time. More¬
over, the walls were twice as thick as before. Nothing
short of explosives would lay them low this time!
And when they thought of how they had laboured,
what discouragements they had overcome, and the
enormous difference that would be made in their
lives when the sails were turning and the dynamos
running— when they thought of all this, their tired¬
ness forsook them and they gambolled round and
round the windmill, uttering cries of triumph. Na¬
poleon himself, attended by his dogs and his cockerel,
came down to inspect the completed work; he per¬
sonally congratulated the animals on their achieve¬
ment, and announced that the mill would be named
Napoleon Mill.

Two days later the animals were called together for
a special meeting in the barn. They were struck dumb
with surprise when Napoleon announced that he had

[82]

sold the pile of timber to Frederick. Tomorrow Fred¬
erick's wagons would arrive and begin carting it away.
Throughout the whole period of his seeming friend¬
ship with Pilkington, Napoleon had really been in
secret agreement with Frederick.

All relations with Foxwood had been broken off;
insulting messages had been sent to Pilkington. The
pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield Farm and to
alter their slogan from "Death to Frederick" to
"Death to Pilkington." At the same time Napoleon
assured the animals that the stories of an impending
attack on Animal Farm were completely untrue, and
that the tales about Frederick's cruelty to his own ani¬
mals had been greatly exaggerated. All these rumours
had probably originated with Snowball and his agents.
It now appeared that Snowball was not, after all, hid¬
ing on Pinchfield Farm, and in fact had never been
there in his life: he was living— in considerable lux¬
ury, so it was said— at Foxwood, and had in reality
been a pensioner of Pilkington for years past.

The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's cunning.
By seeming to be friendly with Pilkington he had
forced Frederick to raise his price by twelve pounds.
But the superior quality of Napoleon's mind, said
Squealer, was shown in the fact that he trusted no¬
body, not even Frederick. Frederick had wanted to
pay for the timber with something called a cheque,
which, it seemed, was a piece of paper with a promise
to pay written upon it. But Napoleon was too clever
for him. He had demanded payment in real five-pound
notes, which were to be handed over before the timber

[83]

was removed. Already Frederick had paid up; and the
sum he had paid was just enough to buy the ma¬
chinery for the windmill.

Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at
high speed. When it was all gone, another special
meeting was held in the barn for the animals to in¬
spect Frederick's bank-notes. Smiling beatifically, and
wearing both his decorations, Napoleon reposed on a
bed of straw on the platform, with the money at his
side, neatly piled on a china dish from the farmhouse
kitchen. The animals filed slowly past, and each gazed
his fill. And Boxer put out his nose to sniff at the
bank-notes, and the flimsy white things stirred and
rustled in his breath.

Three days later there was a terrible hullabaloo.
Whymper, his face deadly pale, came racing up the
path on his bicycle, flung it down in the yard and
rushed straight into the farmhouse. The next moment
a choking roar of rage sounded from Napoleon's apart¬
ments. The news of what had happened sped round
the farm like wildfire. The bank-notes were forgeries!
Frederick had got the timber for nothing!

Napoleon called the animals together immediately
and in a terrible voice pronounced the death sentence
upon Frederick. When captured, he said, Frederick
should be boiled alive. At the same time he warned
them that after this treacherous deed the worst was
to be expected. Frederick and his men might make
their long-expected attack at any moment. Sentinels
were placed at all the approaches to the farm. In
addition, four pigeons were sent to Foxwood with a

[84]

conciliatory message, which it was hoped might re¬
establish good relations with Pilkington.

The very next morning the attack came. The ani¬
mals were at breakfast when the look-outs came racing
in with the news that Frederick and his followers had
already come through the five-barred gate. Boldly
enough the animals sallied forth to meet them, but
this time they did not have the easy victory that they
had had in the Battle of the Cowshed. There were
fifteen men, with half a dozen guns between them,
and they opened fire as soon as they got within fifty
yards. The animals could not face the terrible ex¬
plosions and the stinging pellets, and in spite of the
efforts of Napoleon and Boxer to rally them, they
were soon driven back. A number of them were al¬
ready wounded. They took refuge in the farm build¬
ings and peeped cautiously out from chinks and
knot-holes. The whole of the big pasture, including
the windmill, was in the hands of the enemy. For the
moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss. He paced up
and down without a word, his tail rigid and twitching.
Wistful glances were sent in the direction of Fox-
wood. If Pilkington and his men would help them, the
day might yet be won. But at this moment the four
pigeons, who had been sent out on the day before,
returned, one of them bearing a scrap of paper from
Pilkington. On it was pencilled the words: "Serves
you right.”

Meanwhile Frederick and his men had halted about
the windmill. The animals watched them, and a mur¬
mur of dismay went round. Two of the men had pro-

[85]

duced a crowbar and a sledge hammer. They were
going to knock the windmill down.

“Impossible!” cried Napoleon. “We have built the
walls far too thick for that. They could not knock it
down in a week. Courage, comrades!”

But Benjamin was watching the movements of the
men intently. The two with the hammer and the
crowbar were drilling a hole near the base of the wind¬
mill. Slowly, and with an air almost of amusement,
Benjamin nodded his long muzzle.

“I thought so,” he said. “Do you not see what they
are doing? In another moment they are going to pack
blasting powder into that hole.”

Terrified, the animals waited. It was impossible now
to venture out of the shelter of the buildings. After a
few minutes the men were seen to be running in all
directions. Then there was a deafening roar. The pi¬
geons swirled into the air, and all the animals, except
Napoleon, flung themselves flat on their bellies and
hid their faces. When they got up again, a huge cloud
of black smoke was hanging where the windmill had
been. Slowly the breeze drifted it away. The windmill
had ceased to exist!

At this sight the animals' courage returned to them.
The fear and despair they had felt a moment earlier
were drowned in their rage against this vile, con¬
temptible act. A mighty cry for vengeance went up,
and without waiting for further orders they charged
forth in a body and made straight for the enemy. This
time they did not heed the cruel pellets that swept
over them like hail. It was a savage, bitter battle. The
[86]

men fired again and again, and, when the animals got
to close quarters, lashed out with their sticks and their
heavy boots. A cow, three sheep, and two geese were
killed, and nearly everyone was wounded. Even Na¬
poleon, who was directing operations from the rear,
had the tip of his tail chipped by a pellet. But the
men did not go unscathed either. Three of them had
their heads broken by blows from Boxer's hoofs; an¬
other was gored in the belly by a cow's horn; another
had his trousers nearly torn off by Jessie and Bluebell.
And when the nine dogs of Napoleon's own body¬
guard, whom he had instructed to make a detour
under cover of the hedge, suddenly appeared on the
men's flank, baying ferociously, panic overtook them.
They saw that they were in danger of being sur¬
rounded. Frederick shouted to his men to get out
while the going was good, and the next moment the
cowardly enemy was running for dear life. The ani¬
mals chased them right down to the bottom of the
field, and got in some last kicks at them as they forced
their way through the thorn hedge.

They had won, but they were weary and bleeding.
Slowly they began to limp back towards the farm. The
sight of their dead comrades stretched upon the grass
moved some of them to tears. And for a little while
they halted in sorrowful silence at the place where the
windmill had once stood. Yes, it was gone; almost the
last trace of their labour was gone! Even the founda¬
tions were partially destroyed. And in rebuilding it
they could not this time, as before, make use of the
fallen stones. This time the stones had vanished too.

[87]

The force of the explosion had flung them to distances
of hundreds of yards. It was as though the windmill
had never been.

As they approached the farm Squealer, who had
unaccountably been absent during the fighting, came
skipping towards them, whisking his tail and beaming
with satisfaction. And the animals heard, from the
direction of the farm buildings, the solemn booming
of a gun.

"What is that gun firing for?” said Boxer.

"To celebrate our victory!” cried Squealer.

"What victory?” said Boxer. His knees were bleed¬
ing, he had lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen
pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg.

"What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the
enemy off our soil— the sacred soil of Animal Farm?”

"But they have destroyed the windmill. And we
had worked on it for two years!”

"What matter? We will build another windmill.
We will build six windmills if we feel like it. You do
not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we
have done. The enemy was in occupation of this very
ground that we stand upon. And now— thanks to the
leadership of Comrade Napoleon— we have won every
inch of it back again!”

"Then we have won back what we had before,” said
Boxer.

"That is our victory,” said Squealer.

They limped into the yard. The pellets under the
skin of Boxer’s leg smarted painfully. He saw ahead
of him the heavy labour of rebuilding the windmill
[88]

from the foundations, and already in imagination he
braced himself for the task. But for the first time it
occurred to him that he was eleven years old and that
perhaps his great muscles were not quite what they
had once been.

But when the animals saw the green flag flying, and
heard the gun firing again— seven times it was fired in
all— and heard the speech that Napoleon made, con¬
gratulating them on their conduct, it did seem to them
after all that they had won a great victory. The ani¬
mals slain in the battle were given a solemn funeral.
Boxer and Clover pulled the wagon which served as
a hearse, and Napoleon himself walked at the head of
the procession. Two whole days were given over to
celebrations. There were songs, speeches, and more
firing of the gun, and a special gift of an apple was
bestowed on every animal, with two ounces of corn
for each bird and three biscuits for each dog. It was
announced that the battle would be called the Battle
of the Windmill, and that Napoleon had created a
new decoration, the Order of the Green Banner, which
he had conferred upon himself. In the general rejoic¬
ings the unfortunate affair of the bank-notes was
forgotten.

It was a few days later than this that the pigs came
upon a case of whisky in the cellars of the farmhouse.
It had been overlooked at the time when the house
was first occupied. That night there came from the
farmhouse the sound of loud singing, in which, to
everyone’s surprise, the strains of Beasts of England
were mixed up. At about half-past nine Napoleon,

[S9]

wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones’s, was dis¬
tinctly seen to emerge from the back door, gallop
rapidly round the yard, and disappear indoors again.
But in the morning a deep silence hung over the
farmhouse. Not a pig appeared to be stirring. It was
nearly nine o’clock when Squealer made his appear¬
ance, walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his
tail hanging limply behind him, and with every ap¬
pearance of being seriously ill. He called the animals
together and told them that he had a terrible piece of
news to impart. Comrade Napoleon was dying!

A cry of lamentation went up. Straw was laid down
outside the doors of the farmhouse, and the animals
walked on tiptoe. With tears in their eyes they asked
one another what they should do if their Leader were
taken away from them. A rumour went round that
Snowball had after all contrived to introduce poison
into Napoleon’s food. At eleven o’clock Squealer came
out to make another announcement. As his last act
upon earth, Comrade Napoleon had pronounced a
solemn decree: the drinking of alcohol was to be pun¬
ished by death.

By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be
somewhat better, and the following morning Squealer
was able to tell them that he was well on the way to
recovery. By the evening of that day Napoleon was
back at work, and on the next day it was learned that
he had instructed Whymper to purchase in Willing-
don some booklets on brewing and distilling. A week
later Napoleon gave orders that the small paddock
beyond the orchard, which it had previously been in-

[ 9° ]

tended to set aside as a grazing-ground for animals
who were past work, was to be ploughed up. It was
given out that the pasture was exhausted and needed
re-seeding; but it soon became known that Napoleon
intended to sow it with barley.

About this time there occurred a strange incident
which hardly anyone was able to understand. One
night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash
in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls.
It was a moonlit night. At the foot of the end wall of
the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were
written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces.'
Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside
it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush,
and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs im¬
mediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted
him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to
walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to
what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded
his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to under¬
stand, but would say nothing.

But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven
Commandments to herself, noticed that there was yet
another of them which the animals had remembered
wrong. They had thought that the Fifth Command¬
ment was "No animal shall drink alcohol," but there
were two words that they had forgotten. Actually the
Commandment read: “No animal shall drink alcohol
to excess.”

CHAPTER IX

FXER’S split hoof was a long time in healing.

They had started the rebuilding of the windmill
the day after the victory celebrations were ended.
Boxer refused to take even a day off work, and made it
a point of honour not to let it be seen that he was in
pain. In the evenings he would admit privately to
Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal. Clover
treated the hoof with poultices of herbs which she pre¬
pared by chewing them, and both she and Benjamin
urged Boxer to work less hard. “A horse's lungs do not
last for ever," she said to him. But Boxer would not
listen. He had, he said, only one real ambition left —
to see the windmill well under way before he reached
the age for retirement.

At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm
were first formulated, the retiring age had been fixed
for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows at fourteen, for
dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and geese
at five. Liberal old-age pensions had been agreed upon.
As yet no animal had actually retired on pension, but
of late the subject had been discussed more and more.
Now that the small field beyond the orchard had
been set aside for barley, it was rumoured that a corner

[ 92 ]

of the large pasture was to be fenced off and turned
into a grazing-ground for superannuated animals. For
a horse, it was said, the pension would be five pounds
of corn a day and, in winter, fifteen pounds of hay,
with a carrot or possibly an apple on public holidays.
Boxer's twelfth birthday was due in the late summer
of the following year.

Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as
the last one had been, and food was even shorter. Once
again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs
and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations. Squealer
explained, would have been contrary to the principles
of Animalism. In any case he had no difficulty in prov¬
ing to the other animals that they were not in reality
short of food, whatever the appearances might be. For
the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary
to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always
spoke of it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduc¬
tion"), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the
improvement was enormous. Reading out the figures
in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail
that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than
they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter
hours, that their drinking water was of better quality,
that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their
young ones survived infancy, and that they had more
straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The
animals believed every word of it. Truth to tell, Jones
and all he stood for had almost faded out of their
memories. They knew that life nowadays was harsh
and bare, that they were often hungry and often cold,

[93]

and that they were usually working when they were
not asleep. But doubtless it had been worse in the old
days. They were glad to believe so. Besides, in those
days they had been slaves and now they were free, and
that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail
to point out.

There were many more mouths to feed now. In the
autumn the four sows had all littered about simul¬
taneously, producing thirty-one young pigs between
them. The young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon
was the only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess
at their parentage. It was announced that later, when
bricks and timber had been purchased, a schoolroom
would be built in the farmhouse garden. For the time
being, the young pigs were given their instruction by
Napoleon himself in the farmhouse kitchen. They
took their exercise in the garden, and were discour¬
aged from playing with the other young animals.
About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that
when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the
other animal must stand aside: and also that all pigs,
of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wear¬
ing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.

The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was
still short of money. There were the bricks, sand, and
lime for the schoolroom to be purchased, and it would
also be necessary to begin saving up again for the
machinery for the windmill. Then there were lamp oil
and candles for the house, sugar for Napoleon's own
table (he forbade this to the other pigs, on the ground
that it made them fat) , and all the usual replacements

[94]

such as tools, nails, string, coal, wire, scrap-iron, and
dog biscuits. A stump of hay and part of the potato
crop were sold off, and the contract for eggs was in¬
creased to six hundred a week, so that that year the
hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their num¬
bers at the same level. Rations, reduced in December,
were reduced again in February, and lanterns in the
stalls were forbidden to save oil. But the pigs seemed
comfortable enough, and in fact were putting on
weight if anything. One afternoon in late February a
warm, rich, appetising scent, such as the animals had
never smelt before, wafted itself across the yard from
the little brew-house, which had been disused in
Jones’s time, and which stood beyond the kitchen.
Someone said it was the smell of cooking barley. The
animals sniffed the air hungrily and wondered whether
a warm mash was being prepared for their supper. But
no warm mash appeared, and on the following Sun¬
day it was announced that from now onwards all
barley would be reserved for the pigs. The field beyond
the orchard had already been sown with barley. And
the news soon leaked out that every pig was now re¬
ceiving a ration of a pint of beer daily, with half a
gallon for Napoleon himself, which was always served
to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen.

But if there were hardships to be borne, they were
partly offset by the fact that life nowadays had a
greater dignity than it had had before. There were
more songs, more speeches, more processions. Na¬
poleon had commanded that once a week there should
be held something called a Spontaneous Demonstra-

[95]

tion, the object of which was to celebrate the struggles
and triumphs of Animal Farm. At the appointed time
the animals would leave their work and march round
the precincts of the farm in military formation, with
the pigs leading, then the horses, then the cows, then
the sheep, and then the poultry. The dogs flanked
the procession and at the head of all marched Na¬
poleon’s black cockerel. Boxer and Clover always car¬
ried between them a green banner marked with the
hoof and the horn and the caption, 'Tong live Com¬
rade Napoleon!” Afterwards there were recitations of
poems composed in Napoleon’s honour, and a speech
by Squealer giving particulars of the latest increases
in the production of foodstuffs, and on occasion a shot
was fired from the gun. The sheep were the greatest
devotees of the Spontaneous Demonstration, and if
anyone complained (as a few animals sometimes did,
when no pigs or dogs were near) that they wasted time
and meant a lot of standing about in the cold, the
sheep were sure to silence him with a tremendous
bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad!” But by and
large the animals enjoyed these celebrations. They
found it comforting to be reminded that, after all,
they were truly their own masters and that the work
they did was for their own benefit. So that, what with
the songs, the processions, Squealer’s lists of figures,
the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel,
and the fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget
that their bellies were empty, at least part of the time.

In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic,
and it became necessary to elect a President. There

[96]

was only one candidate, Napoleon, who was elected
unanimously. On the same day it was given out that
fresh documents had been discovered which revealed
further details about Snowball’s complicity with Jones.
It now appeared that Snowball had not, as the ani¬
mals had previously imagined, merely attempted to
lose the Battle of the Cowshed by means of a strata¬
gem, but had been openly fighting on Jones’s side. In
fact, it was he who had actually been the leader of the
human forces, and had charged into battle with the
words "Long live Humanity!” on his lips. The wounds
on Snowball’s back, which a few of the animals still
remembered to have seen, had been inflicted by Na¬
poleon’s teeth.

In the middle of the summer Moses the raven sud¬
denly reappeared on the farm, after an absence of
several years. He was quite unchanged, still did no
work, and talked in the same strain as ever about
Sugarcandy Mountain. He would perch on a stump,
flap his black wings, and talk by the hour to anyone
who would listen. "Up there, comrades,” he would
say solemnly, pointing to the sky with his large beak—
"up there, just on the other side of that dark cloud
that you can see— there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain,
that happy country where we poor animals shall rest
for ever from our labours!” He even claimed to have
been there on one of his higher flights, and to have
seen the everlasting fields of clover and the linseed
cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges. Many of
the animals believed him. Their lives now, they
reasoned, were hungry and laborious; was it not right

[97]

and just that a better world should exist somewhere
else? A thing that was difficult to determine was the
attitude of the pigs towards Moses. They all declared
contemptuously that his stories about Sugarcandy
Mountain were lies, and yet they allowed him to re¬
main on the farm, not working, with an allowance of
a gill of beer a day.

After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder
than ever. Indeed, all the animals worked like slaves
that year. Apart from the regular work of the farm,
and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the
schoolhouse for the young pigs, which was started in
March. Sometimes the long hours on insufficient food
were hard to bear, but Boxer never faltered. In nothing
that he said or did was there any sign that his strength
was not what it had been. It was only his appearance
that was a little altered; his hide was less shiny than it
had used to be, and his great haunches seemed to have
shrunken. The others said, “Boxer will pick up when
the spring grass comes on”; but the spring came and
Boxer grew no fatter. Sometimes on the slope leading
to the top of the quarry, when he braced his muscles
against the weight of some vast boulder, it seemed
that nothing kept him on his feet except the will to
continue. At such times his lips were seen to form
the words, “I will work harder”; he had no voice left.
Once again Clover and Benjamin warned him to take
care of his health, but Boxer paid no attention. His
twelfth birthday was approaching. He did not care
what happened so long as a good store of stone was
accumulated before he went on pension.

[98]

Late one evening in the summer, a sudden rumour
ran round the farm that something had happened to
Boxer. He had gone out alone to drag a load of stone
down to the windmill. And sure enough, the rumour
was true. A few minutes later two pigeons came racing
in with the news: ''Boxer has fallen! He is lying on his
side and can't get up!"

About half the animals on the farm rushed out to
the knoll where the windmill stood. There lay Boxer,
between the shafts of the cart, his neck stretched out,
unable even to raise his head. His eyes were glazed, his
sides matted with sweat. A thin stream of blood had
trickled out of his mouth. Clover dropped to her knees
at his side.

"Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?"

"It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice. "It does
not matter. I think you will be able to finish the wind¬
mill without me. There is a pretty good store of stone
accumulated. I had only another month to go in any
case. To tell you the truth, I had been looking forward
to my retirement. And perhaps, as Benjamin is grow¬
ing old too, they will let him retire at the same time
and be a companion to me."

"We must get help at once," said Clover. "Run,
somebody, and tell Squealer what has happened."

All the other animals immediately raced back to the
farmhouse to give Squealer the news. Only Clover re¬
mained, and Benjamin, who lay down at Boxer's side,
and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his
long tail. After about a quarter of an hour Squealer
appeared, full of sympathy and concern. He said that

[99]

Comrade Napoleon had learned with the very deep¬
est distress of this misfortune to one of the most loyal
workers on the farm, and was already making arrange¬
ments to send Boxer to be treated in the hospital at
Willingdon. The animals felt a little uneasy at this.
Except for Mollie and Snowball, no other animal had
ever left the farm, and they did not like to think of
their sick comrade' in the hands of human beings.
However, Squealer easily convinced them that the
veterinary surgeon in Willingdon could treat Boxer’s
case more satisfactorily than could be done on the
farm. And about half an hour later, when Boxer had
somewhat recovered, he was with difficulty got on to
his feet, and managed to limp back to his stall, where
Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good bed of
straw for him.

For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall.
The pigs had sent out a large bottle of pink medicine
which they had found in the medicine chest in the
bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer twice
a day after meals. In the evenings she lay in his stall
and talked to him, while Benjamin kept the flies off
him. Boxer professed not to be sorry for what had hap-
* pened. If he made a good recovery, he might expect
to live another three years, and he looked forward to
the peaceful days that he would spend in the corner
of the big pasture. It would be the first time that he
had had leisure to study and improve his mind. He
intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learn¬
ing the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.

However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with
[ 100]

Boxer after working hours, and it was in the middle of
the day when the van came to take him away. The
animals were all at work weeding turnips under the
supervision of a pig, when they were astonished to see
Benjamin come galloping from the direction of the
farm buildings, braying at the top of his voice. It was
the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin excited
—indeed, it was the first time that anyone had ever
seen him gallop. "Quick, quick!” he shouted. "Come
at once! They're taking Boxer away!” Without wait¬
ing for orders from the pig, the animals broke off work
and raced back to the farm buildings. Sure enough,
there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by two
horses, with lettering on its side and a sly-looking man
in a low-crowned bowler hat sitting on the driver's
seat. And Boxer's stall was empty.

The animals crowded round the van. "Good-bye,
Boxer!” they chorused, "good-bye!”

"Fools! Fools!” shouted Benjamin, prancing round
them and stamping the earth with his small hoofs.
"Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of
that van?”

That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush.
Muriel began to spell out the words. But Benjamin
pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence
he read:

" 'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue
Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal.
Kennels Supplied.' Do you not understand what that
means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!”

A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this

[ 101 ]

moment the man on the box whipped up his horses
and the van moved out of the yard at a smart trot. All
the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their
voices. Clover forced her way to the front. The van
began to gather speed. Clover tried to stir her stout
limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter. “Boxer!” she
cried. “Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!” And just at this mo¬
ment, as though he had heard the uproar outside.
Boxer’s face, with the white stripe down his nose,
appeared at the small window at the back of the van.

“Boxer!” cried Clover in a terrible voice. “Boxer!
Get out! Get out quickly! They are taking you to your
death!”

All the animals took up the cry of “Get out, Boxer,
get out!” But the van was already gathering speed and
drawing away from them. It was uncertain whether
Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a
moment later his face disappeared from the window
and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming
of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way
out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer’s
hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. But
alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments
the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died
away. In desperation the animals began appealing to
the two horses which drew the van to stop. “Com¬
rades, comrades!” they shouted. “Don’t take your own
brother to his death!” But the stupid brutes, too igno¬
rant to realise what was happening, merely set back
their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer’s face did
not reappear at the window. Too late, someone
[ 102 ]

thought of racing ahead and shutting the five-barred
gate; but in another moment the van was through it
and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was
never seen again.

Three days later it was announced that he had died
in the hospital at Willingdon, in spite of receiving
every attention a horse could have. Squealer came to
announce the news to the others. He had, he said,
been present during Boxer's last hours.

"It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!"
said Squealer, lifting his trotter and wiping away a
tear. "I was at his bedside at the very last. And at the
end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear
that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the
windmill was finished. 'Forward, comrades!' he whis¬
pered. 'Forward in the name of the Rebellion. Long
live Animal Farm! Long live Comrade Napoleon! Na¬
poleon is always right.' Those were his very last words,
comrades."

Here Squealer's demeanour suddenly changed. He
fell silent for a moment, and his little eyes darted sus¬
picious glances from side to side before he proceeded.

It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a fool¬
ish and wicked rumour had been circulated at the time
of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals had noticed
that the van which took Boxer away was marked
"Horse Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the
conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the knacker's.
It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer, that any ani¬
mal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly,
whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely

[ 103 ]

they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon,
better than that? But the explanation was really very
simple. The van had previously been the property of
the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary
surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out.
That was how the mistake had arisen.

The animals were enormously relieved to hear this.
And when Squealer went on to give further graphic
details of Boxer's death-bed, the admirable care he
had received, and the expensive medicines for which
Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost,
their last doubts disappeared and the sorrow that they
felt for their comrade's death was tempered by the
thought that at least he had died happy.

Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the
following Sunday morning and pronounced a short
oration in Boxer's honour. It had not been possible, he
said, to bring back their lamented comrade’s remains
for interment on the farm, but he had ordered a large
wreath to be made from the laurels in the farmhouse
garden and sent down to be placed on Boxer's grave.
And in a few days’ time the pigs intended to hold a
memorial banquet in Boxer's honour. Napoleon ended
his speech with a reminder of Boxer's two favourite
maxims, “I will work harder" and “Comrade Na¬
poleon is always right"— maxims, he said, which every
animal would do well to adopt as his own.

On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer’s
van drove up from Willingdon and delivered a large
wooden crate at the farmhouse. That night there was
the sound of uproarious singing, which was followed

[ 104]

by what sounded like a violent quarrel and ended at
about eleven o'clock with a tremendous crash of glass.
No one stirred in the farmhouse before noon on the
following day, and the word went round that from
somewhere or other the pigs had acquired the money
to buy themselves another case of whisky.

1 105 ]

CHAPTER X

EARS passed. The seasons came and went, the

short animal lives fled by. A time came when
there was no one who remembered the old days be¬
fore the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses
the raven, and a number of the pigs.

Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were
dead. Jones too was dead— he had died in an inebri¬
ates' home in another part of the county. Snowball
was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten, except by the few
who had known him. Clover was an old stout mare
now, stiff in the joints and with a tendency to rheumy
eyes. She was two years past the retiring age, but in
fact no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of
setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated
animals had long since been dropped. Napoleon was
now a mature boar of twenty-four stone. Squealer was
so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes.
Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever, except
for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since
Boxer's death, more morose and taciturn than ever.

There were many more creatures on the farm now,
though the increase was not so great as had been ex¬
pected in earlier years. Many animals had been born

[106]

to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition,
passed on by word of mouth, and others had been
bought who had never heard mention of such a thing
before their arrival. The farm possessed three horses
now besides Clover. They were fine upstanding beasts,
willing workers and good comrades, but very stupid.
None of them proved able to learn the alphabet be¬
yond the letter B. They accepted everything that they
were told about the Rebellion and the principles of
Animalism, especially from Clover, for whom they had
an almost filial respect; but it was doubtful whether
they understood very much of it.

The farm was more prosperous now, and better
organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields
which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. The
windmill had been successfully completed at last, and
the farm possessed a threshing machine and a hay ele¬
vator of its own, and various new buildings had been
added to it. Whymper had bought himself a dogcart.
The windmill, however, had not after all been used
for generating electrical power. It was used for milling
corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. The
animals were hard at work building yet another wind¬
mill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the
dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries of which
Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the
stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and
the three-day week, were no longer talked about. Na¬
poleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the
spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay
in working hard and living frugally.

[ 107]

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown
richer without making the animals themselves any
richer— except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.
Perhaps this was partly because there were so many
pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures
did not work, after their fashion. There was, as
Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work
in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much
of this work was of a kind that the other animals were
too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer
told them that the pigs had to expend enormous la¬
bours every day upon mysterious things called "files,1 ”
"reports/7 "minutes/7 and "memoranda.77 These were
large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered
with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they
were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest im¬
portance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said.
But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by
their own labour; and there were very many of them,
and their appetites were always good.

As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was
as it had always been. They were generally hungry,
they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they
laboured in the fields; in winter they were troubled by
the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the
older ones among them racked their dim memories
and tried to determine whether in the early days of
the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent,
things had been better or worse than now. They could
not remember. There was nothing with which they
could compare their present lives: they had nothing

[ 108 ]

to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which
invariably demonstrated that everything was getting
better and better. The animals found the problem in¬
soluble; in any case, they had little time for speculat¬
ing on such things now. Only old Benjamin professed
to remember every detail of his long life and to know
that things never had been, nor ever could be much
better or much worse— hunger, hardship, and disap¬
pointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of
life.

And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they
never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour
and privilege in being members of Animal Farm. They
were still the only farm in the whole county— in all
England!— owned and operated by animals. Not one
of them, not even the youngest, not even the new¬
comers who had been brought from farms ten or
twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel at that. And
when they heard the gun booming and saw the green
flag fluttering at the masthead, their hearts swelled
with imperishable pride, and the talk turned always
towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones,
the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great
battles in which the human invaders had been de¬
feated. None of the old dreams had been abandoned.
The Republic of the Animals which Major had fore¬
told, when the green fields of England should be un¬
trodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day
it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be
within the lifetime of any animal now living, but still
it was coming. Even the tune of Beasts of England

[ 109]

was perhaps hummed secretly here and there: at any
rate, it was a fact that every animal on the farm knew
it, though no one would have dared to sing it aloud.
It might be that their lives were hard and that not all
of their hopes had been fulfilled; but they were con¬
scious that they were not as other animals. If they
went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical hu¬
man beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked
for themselves. No creature among them went upon
two legs. No creature called any other creature
“Master.” All animals were equal.

One day in early summer Squealer ordered the
sheep to follow him, and led them out to a piece of
waste ground at the other end of the farm, which had
become overgrown with birch saplings. The sheep
spent the whole day there browsing at the leaves under
Squealer’s supervision. In the evening he returned to
the farmhouse himself, but, as it was warm weather,
told the sheep to stay where they were. It ended
by their remaining there for a whole week, during
which time the other animals saw nothing of them.
Squealer was with them for the greater part of every
day. He was, he said, teaching them to sing a new
song, for which privacy was needed.

It was just after the sheep had returned, on a
pleasant evening when the animals had finished work
and were making their way back to the farm build¬
ings, that the terrified neighing of a horse sounded
from the yard. Startled, the animals stopped in their
tracks. It was Clover’s voice. She neighed again, and
[ no]

all the animals broke into a gallop and rushed into
the yard. Then they saw what Clover had seen.

It was a pig walking on his hind legs.

Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though
not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in
that position, but with perfect balance, he was stroll¬
ing across the yard. And a moment later, out from the
door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all
walking on their hind legs. Some did it better than
others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and
looked as though they would have liked the support
of a stick, but every one of them made his way right
round the yard successfully. And finally there was a
tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from
the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself,
majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side
to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified,
huddling together, the animals watched the long line
of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though
the world had turned upside-down. Then there came
a moment when the first shock had worn off and
when, in spite of everything— in spite of their terror of
the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long
years, of never complaining, never criticising, no mat¬
ter what happened— they might have uttered some
word of protest. But just at that moment, as though
at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous
bleating of—

[in]

"Four legs good, two legs better l Four legs good,
two legs better l Four legs good, two legs better 1’*

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And
by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance
to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had
marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He
looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dim¬
mer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged
gently at his mane and led him round to the end of
the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were
written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the
tarred wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing/' she said finally. "Even when
I was young I could not have read what was written
there. But it appears to me that that wall looks dif¬
ferent. Are the Seven Commandments the same as
they used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and
he read out to her what was written on the wall. There
was nothing there now except a single Command¬
ment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

After that it did not seem strange when next day
the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm
all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem
strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves
a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone,
and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull , Tit-Bits,
[ 112 ]

and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when
Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden
with a pipe in his mouth— no, not even when the pigs
took Mr. Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put
them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat,
ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his
favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which
Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.

A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dog¬
carts drove up to the farm. A deputation of neighbour¬
ing farmers had been invited to make a tour of inspec¬
tion. They were shown all over the farm, and expressed
great admiration for everything they saw, especially
the windmill. The animals were weeding the turnip
field. They worked diligently, hardly raising their faces
from the ground, and not knowing whether to be
more frightened of the pigs or of the human visitors.

That evening loud laughter and bursts of singing
came from the farmhouse. And suddenly, at the sound
of the mingled voices, the animals were stricken with
curiosity. What could be happening in there, now that
for the first time animals and human beings were
meeting on terms of equality? With one accord they
began to creep as quietly as possible into the farm¬
house garden.

At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on,
but Clover led the way in. They tiptoed up to the
house, and such animals as were tall enough peered in
at the dining-room window. There, round the long
table, sat half a dozen farmers and half a dozen of the
more eminent pigs, Napoleon himself occupying the

[ 113 ]

seat of honour at the head of the table. The pigs
appeared completely at ease in their chairs. The com¬
pany had been enjoying a game of cards, but had
broken off for the moment, evidently in order to drink
a toast. A large jug was circulating, and the mugs were
being refilled with beer. No one noticed the wonder¬
ing faces of the animals that gazed in at the window.

Mr. Pilkington, of Foxwood, had stood up, his mug
in his hand. In a moment, he said, he would ask the
present company to drink a toast. But before doing so,
there were a few words that he felt it incumbent upon
him to say.

It was a source of great satisfaction to him, he said
—and, he was sure, to all others present— to feel that
a long period of mistrust and misunderstanding had
now come to an end. There had been a time— not that
he, or any of the present company, had shared such
sentiments— but there had been a time when the
respected proprietors of Animal Farm had been
regarded, he would not say with hostility, but perhaps
with a certain measure of misgiving, by their human
neighbours. Unfortunate incidents had occurred, mis¬
taken ideas had been current. It had been felt that
the existence of a farm owned and operated by pigs
was somehow abnormal and was liable to have an
unsettling effect in the neighbourhood. Too many
farmers had assumed, without due enquiry, that on
such a farm a spirit of licence and indiscipline would
prevail. They had been nervous about the effects upon
their own animals, or even upon their human em¬
ployees. But all such doubts were now dispelled. To-

[114]

day he and his friends had visited Animal Farm and
inspected every inch of it with their own eyes, and
what did they find? Not only the most up-to-date
methods, but a discipline and an orderliness which
should be an example to all farmers everywhere. He
believed that he was right in saying that the lower
animals on Animal Farm did more work and received
less food than any animals in the county. Indeed, he
and his fellow-visitors today had observed many fea¬
tures which they intended to introduce on their own
farms immediately.

He would end his remarks, he said, by emphasising
once again the friendly feelings that subsisted, and
ought to subsist, between Animal Farm and its neigh¬
bours. Between pigs and human beings there was not,
and there need not be, any clash of interests whatever.
Their struggles and their difficulties were one. Was
not the labour problem the same everywhere? Here
it became apparent that Mr. Pilkington was about to
spring some carefully prepared witticism on the com¬
pany, but for a moment he was too overcome by
amusement to be able to utter it. After much choking,
during which his various chins turned purple, he man¬
aged to get it out: “If you have your lower animals to
contend with/' he said, “we have our lower classes!"
This bon mot set the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilking¬
ton once again congratulated the pigs on the low
rations, the long working hours, and the general
absence of pampering which he had observed on
Animal Farm.

And now, he said finally, he would ask the company

[ 115]

to rise to their feet and make certain that their glasses
were full. “Gentlemen,” concluded Mr. Pilkington,
“gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the prosperity of
Animal Farm!”

There was enthusiastic cheering and stamping of
feet. Napoleon was so gratified that he left his place
and came round the table to clink his mug against
Mr. Pilkington’s before emptying it. When the cheer¬
ing had died down, Napoleon, who had remained on
his feet, intimated that he too had a few words to say.

Like all of Napoleon’s speeches, it was short and to
the point. He too, he said, was happy that the period
of misunderstanding was at an end. For a long time
there had been rumours— circulated, he had reason to
think, by some malignant enemy— that there was
something subversive and even revolutionary in the
outlook of himself and his colleagues. They had been
credited with attempting to stir up rebellion among
the animals on neighbouring farms. Nothing could be
further from the truth! Their sole wish, now and in
the past, was to live at peace and in normal business
relations with their neighbours. This farm which he
had the honour to control, he added, was a co-opera¬
tive enterprise. The title-deeds, which were in his own
possession, were owned by the pigs jointly.

He did not believe, he said, that any of the old
suspicions still lingered, but certain changes had been
made recently in the routine of the farm which should
have the effect of promoting confidence still further.
Hitherto the animals on the farm had had a rather
foolish custom of addressing one another as “Com-
[ 116 ]

rade.” This was to be suppressed. There had also been
a very strange custom, whose origin was unknown, of
marching every Sunday morning past a boar's skull
which was nailed to a post in the garden. This, too,
would be suppressed, and the skull had already been
buried. His visitors might have observed, too, the
green flag which flew from the masthead. If so, they
would perhaps have noted that the white hoof and
horn with which it had previously been marked had
now been removed. It would be a plain green flag
from now onwards.

He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr.
Pilkington's excellent and neighbourly speech. Mr.
Pilkington had referred throughout to "Animal
Farm." He could not of course know— for he, Na¬
poleon, was only now for the first time announcing
it— that the name "Animal Farm" had been abol¬
ished. Henceforward the farm was to be known as
"The Manor Farm"— which, he believed, was its cor¬
rect and original name.

"Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you
the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill
your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast:
To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!"

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and
the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the ani¬
mals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them
that some strange thing was happening. What was it
that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old
dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of
them had five chins, some had four, some had three.

[ 117]

But what was it that seemed to be melting and chang¬
ing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the
company took up their cards and continued the game
that had been interrupted, and the animals crept
silently away.

But they had not gone twenty yards when they
stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from
the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through
the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in
progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table,
sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of
the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr.
Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simul¬
taneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they
were all alike. No question, now, what had happened
to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked
from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig
to man again; but already it was impossible to say
which was which.

[118]

ANIMAL

FARM

GEORGE ORWELL

(' Continued from front flap)

Napoleon, as to who shall run things
—what equally stirs the reader and
brings tears is what happens to the
devoted work-horse, Boxer, and even
to that less admirable but very deftly
pictured character, the mare Mollie,
who loved ribbons. About this little
book there is the same kind of reality
one concedes to Alice in Wonder¬
land. It lives in the heart as a direct
story, as a story for its own sake, and
yet, although the author never in¬
trudes or points a moral, it also takes
on meanings from what we have all
noticed in the affairs of the world.
To read it is an experience out of the
ordinary, for it goes at a bounce into
that region where the heart and the
head join together in enjoyment.

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
383 Madison Avenue, New York 17

?«1NTe0

IN

U. s. p*

to

A ‘V?>042^

GEORGE ORWELL is an English critic, essay¬
ist, and novelist who writes regularly for
The London Observer and The New States¬
man and Nation. He is a frequent con¬
tributor to Cyril Connolly's monthly maga¬
zine Horizon , and his London letters have
appeared in this country in Partisan Review.

Born in Bengal of an Anglo-Indian family,
Orwell was a rebellious scholar at Eton,
served five years in Burma as a member of
the Indian Imperial Police, fought on the
Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War and
was severely wounded.